‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Episode 8 With Bill Simmons

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Speaker 3 All right, your friends and neighbors, episode eight. I'm Bill Simmons.

Speaker 3 I'm hosting just because Rob Mahoney and Joanna, they needed somebody to set some picks and grab some rebounds.

Speaker 3 Good to see both of you. You guys have been recapping this show all season.
I've been jealous. It's a show that I like more and more every episode.

Speaker 3 And now after eight episodes, we've gotten to the point that,

Speaker 3 dare I say, I think this is like kind of a great show.

Speaker 2 Tell me why. Is that too strong? Sell us.
Tell us why, Bill.

Speaker 3 Here's what I'm looking for from an Apple TV show.

Speaker 2 Tell me.

Speaker 3 Are you keeping my interests? every week. Do I know where you're going? Do you have a couple actors that I like? Are you keeping me on my toes? Am I having a good time when I'm watching it?

Speaker 3 This show checks all the boxes for me. I don't think it's succession.
It's not going to, I don't think it's going to win the Emmy for best show, but I'm having a really good time with the show.

Speaker 3 And that's why I wanted to join the recap, Joanna.

Speaker 2 Well, here's my question.

Speaker 2 Last time we talked, you told me this was like a background show for you, that you would like watch it and sort of only had to partially pay attention.

Speaker 2 Do you feel like as the season has gone on and has captured more and more of your attention?

Speaker 3 I feel like that's shifted. It gone from, I was, what did I say, the look up with the first look down? Yeah.

Speaker 3 I find myself looking up almost the entire show now.

Speaker 2 Is it the murder mystery that did it for you or what do you think changed it for you?

Speaker 3 So I made a basketball joke when we were texting about this show is a little like the Denver Nuggets where it's top heavy with its stars. But I really like Ham and Pete.

Speaker 3 I think they're just great on this show. And I think that's why I like it so much.
Rob, is that you like the Nuggets parallels with the show? I wouldn't say the bench is deep. No.

Speaker 3 I think there's some people that can come in and some airball, some threes in short doses, but I think the stars, I think this is a really good vehicle for both of them. They're both great.

Speaker 3 And when they're in scenes together, it pretty much always pops. Like those two characters work together.
Those two actors clearly have a lot of chemistry. It's when you wade into.

Speaker 3 the equivalent of giving like Jalen Pickett 20 minutes in the middle of this season. Yeah.

Speaker 3 There's too many characters. There's too much bloat.
Joe and I have been talking about it for weeks. You know, we got an email from Abby asking us like who we would excise from this show.

Speaker 3 If we had to chop a character off, if we had to send a character to Mandyville, who would we send? I got to say, after this week, I don't know what's going on with this Elena Chivo storyline.

Speaker 3 And I hate to lose like the outsider perspective on this ultra-rich neighborhood and just like get rid of all that stuff, but I have no idea what it's for or what purpose it's serving within a show that otherwise, like I like the murder mystery.

Speaker 3 I like the John Hamm Amanda Pete stuff. There's just all these extraneous threads that I don't really get.

Speaker 3 It's funny you mentioned that because every, that's a classic example of I'm looking down and going through emails when we're doing the Elena Chibo stuff. I just don't really care.

Speaker 3 And anytime we're back with the friend group and the neighborhood and the wealth and some of the shows about, I'm like way more interested, Joanna.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I agree. Like, I think I, I might cut the Elena stuff.
I might cut the Barney's home life. There's just like a few, there's like Barney works

Speaker 2 as like the friend sidekick. He's always really fun in the scenes that he's in.

Speaker 2 And then we're trying to deepen his storyline by taking, like, going into his home life, meeting his in-laws and stuff like that. And I'm just like, I'm not that interested with love and respect.

Speaker 2 And so, and most of the stuff with the kids, like most of the kids' storylines, I'm just sort of like, I don't, you know, we cut away in this episode, we cut away to Hunter, like listening to music on his headphones, you know, in a balcony in his school.

Speaker 2 And I was like, what indie movie is this that we had just like left the show for?

Speaker 2 Like, so yeah, when it boils down to Amanda Pete, John Hamm, Olivia Munn, like, you know, when you're at the core, it works. And there's just so much spread around it that doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2 So that's where I am.

Speaker 3 So I'll do. I don't, as you know, I'm don't like most kid characters in TV shows.
I always feel like they get them wrong and they're not realistic enough a lot of the time.

Speaker 3 I do understand what they're doing with the kids in this show.

Speaker 3 And just like I watched the pilot again to get ready for this, try to figure out after eight episodes, how true was the pilot to what we're watching now.

Speaker 3 The show is really about like, what happens when you hit this point where you peaked.

Speaker 3 And, you know, like when you think about like the first 10 minutes of the pilot and it's tight, it's, it has that great scene in the bar.

Speaker 3 with him and the younger person who works in the uh in his office that they're eventually going to end up with. It was a scene at the bar.

Speaker 3 Was it a great scene at the bar? But there's a lot going on in there for the inside that really, there's a lot of context that I didn't catch the first time.

Speaker 3 They're basically setting up the whole show in that scene.

Speaker 3 And it's about, his life's about to basically, the rug's about to be pulled out and he doesn't realize it yet.

Speaker 3 But then they have that part where it's like, you buy your first house and it has the montage of how your life changes. And then you end up here.

Speaker 3 How did I end up here? What did I do now? I just spent spent the last 20 years putting in all the time and all these different things. And now I'm here.

Speaker 3 And I think that's what the kids kind of represent. It's like, not only am I here, I had these kids I put all this time into and now neither of them like me.

Speaker 3 And I have, I have, I can't connect with either of them in any way on top of all this other shit that's going on. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 It's maybe it's I'm at the right age for a show like this, but because I've seen it happen with people I know where

Speaker 3 you hit a point professionally and personally

Speaker 3 and you're just like, fuck, what was this?

Speaker 3 What's the point of all this?

Speaker 2 The way you put it is like, you've peaked. I think it's also just sort of like, and when you reach that peak and you're like, oh, this is it.
This is what I've been working for.

Speaker 2 Like that, this idea, and it's in the pilot, this idea that you've been sold a false American dream.

Speaker 2 This idea of like, you go to the right school, you work hard enough, you've got the two kids, the hot wife, the nice house, the nice car, and you'll be happy and fulfilled.

Speaker 3 And you're

Speaker 3 stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And you're stuff.
And you're just empty inside. Oops.
Like I thought this is what it was all about. And it's not what it's all about.

Speaker 2 And that, if the arc of the story is Coop figures out what it's all really about, this sort of American beauty storyline, et cetera, et cetera, that's fine.

Speaker 2 But then it's just like, I think it's also trying to be

Speaker 2 too deep and too shallow at the same time. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 It's really trying to have its caviar and eat it too. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like I would almost prefer, I think, the shallower version of the show, the show that's not quoting Oscar Wilde and having big like meditations on materialism. Like just revel in being indulgent.

Speaker 3 Like I think the show is better at that. I think it's better at like the cocaine vendor part of this than it is the like, let's think about our lives part of this.

Speaker 3 That's what I liked about episode eight is it leaned into it. Stuff is, I think, the kind of secret driving force of the show.

Speaker 3 Because it gets mentioned in the pilot and then they mention it in the last couple episodes too, and especially Barney, where he's like, what's the point of all this?

Speaker 3 Why do I have this?

Speaker 3 And then you think like Ham's character, part of how he kind of gets stability over his own life again is he starts stealing this random stuff from other people that he knows that they don't really care about, that they got for like status or some sort of dumb reason.

Speaker 3 And he's stealing it now so he could. you know, get some money back and some control over everything.
But I think that concept's really interesting too, especially when you get older.

Speaker 3 It's like, why do I have this why did i care about this why did i collect this why do why do i have 12 watches you know this show is like tapping into and it's doing it pretty clumsily i agree but it's tapping into themes that i think are pretty interesting for a tv show that i haven't seen yet i have a question for you about the about the like as a father of kids part yeah do you um

Speaker 3 you know i have gotten emails from listeners who are like hey you're not a parent so you have no idea what you're talking about fair but like when it's always tough that's always a tough take of you you know you don't understand this world because let's

Speaker 2 settle down yeah yeah but anyone can have a kid but but i'm curious for you as like a a father of kids in like the same like almost the same age range like the the college trip episode the like car scene where he's yelling about, you know, remembering them and their like undying love when they were kids and now feeling so distanced from them.

Speaker 2 Is that something you like, not like, do you connect to personally, but you're like, that is a feeling that a lot of people my age have about their kids, or how did you feel about that?

Speaker 3 I actually thought the college scene was the best episode. I mean, the college episode.

Speaker 3 I thought start to finish, but the reason it was the best episode was it had the two best people on the show together all the time. And that's, I just want to see that.
What a formula.

Speaker 3 What if the show was just? Yeah,

Speaker 3 go figure. That worked really well.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But what was cool about it, and I identified with a little of it, is

Speaker 3 when you have little kids, you're spending, you're just together as a unit for, I don't know, 12 years, 14 years, whatever it is. It's just, it's the three of you, the four of you, the five of you.

Speaker 3 That's it. Like you're like a pack.
And then what happens is the pack starts to, you know, people go this way. Maybe somebody gets a driver's license.
Maybe somebody goes off to college and

Speaker 3 this happens where, you know, everybody kind of scatters.

Speaker 3 So putting them in the car together on this trip where they're like not kind of used to being together as a group like that anymore I thought that was really interesting like that to me like whoever is doing this show is clearly trying to say stuff about things that have happened to them in their life and you know things about parenthood and peaking too early I don't know I like I'm kind of admire the swings that it's trying to take but I do feel like the second season of the show is going to be better This is what we were talking about.

Speaker 2 We really agree. Like,

Speaker 2 I think they're figuring out as they they go this season what works and what doesn't. And we all agree.
We know Amanda Pete and John Hamm work.

Speaker 2 And I think we all agree that Olivia Munn works and stuff like that. And so they're, if they could just focus in on the central story, though, I don't know where we go.
Like,

Speaker 2 it's too early to think about this because we still have the finale to go, but I'm curious, like,

Speaker 2 how does this, what's the longevity of the show? Does Coop keep stealing? Is he going to jail for murder? Like, where are we going with a story?

Speaker 3 He hasn't stolen anything for how many episodes? It's been a minute.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's been like three episodes. Yeah.
So it was like, because that seems to, that was like

Speaker 2 the show we were sold. Gentleman Robber, like guy robs his friends in the neighborhood.
So like, is that the premise going forward?

Speaker 2 Are they just going to like zag on the premise and say that was a hook to get you in, but actually that was just a brief phase in Coop's midlife crisis and he's going to do something else with it.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Season two is going to be the insurance fraud season. Season three is the racketeering season.
You know, like there's, there's many criminal enterprises to undergo.

Speaker 3 As far as the core of the show, like I think Sam is an interesting character to bring up with Olivia Mund just because will she be on the show? Did she commit murder?

Speaker 2 We're so convinced she's the murderer. Bill, don't you agree?

Speaker 3 I'm so confused.

Speaker 3 You just go for likely suspects. It can't be somebody we don't have any history with on the show.

Speaker 3 So it has to be somebody we'd know. I kind of think it's going to be someone we don't know.

Speaker 2 You think so? You think it's going to be random?

Speaker 3 I mean, let's run through it. Sam, we are being sold guilty pretty hard from Olivia Munt's performance, kind of over and over and over.

Speaker 3 All the circumstantial evidence kind of points to her in a way that makes me think it's not her, but we have no like plausible alternative. We've been presented.

Speaker 3 So as a jury member, I'm looking at Sam. Right.
If it's not Sam, is it like an unnamed mafia member? We've been told Paul was like looped in with organized crime in some way.

Speaker 3 Did he just like get whacked because he didn't play along with whatever was happening? Is it,

Speaker 3 I just literally don't even, is it one of the kids? This is Apple. We know what they're capable of on this, on this particular network.

Speaker 3 I just don't know if it's not Sam. Who is it?

Speaker 2 Bill, you said I'm like your surprise, but Presumed Innocent did the, it's the

Speaker 3 for them to do that card a second time. I'm like, Jesus, really? We're going to do that?

Speaker 2 They're like, the kids are not all right. And let us tell you why.

Speaker 2 I mean, the idea that what if the what about the idea that Sam hired a hitman, like that Sam engineered bit but didn't pull the trigger? What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 And could we still have Sam on the show if she hired a hitman to kill Paul?

Speaker 3 So she might have done it, but not in cold blood herself and thus can go like scot-free from the trial.

Speaker 2 Right. I don't know.
What do you think, Bill?

Speaker 3 Rob makes a strong point. It's too much circumstantial evidence pointing to Sam.

Speaker 3 It feels too easy. It's a lot.

Speaker 2 It's not be her. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So we have two episodes left, right?

Speaker 2 One. Just one.
It's a nine-episode season. Yeah.

Speaker 3 We're going straight to trial in episode nine. We got it.
Nine episode season. Yeah.
What the fuck? I I don't know. Who has a nine episode? I've never heard of such a thing.

Speaker 3 It's either eight, 10, or 12.

Speaker 2 Apple is quite whimsical sometimes with their season lengths. So yeah, it's a nine episode season.

Speaker 2 It's only one more episode to like either wrap up the murder mystery or, you know, spill it over into season two.

Speaker 3 Stepping back, big picture. Yeah.
You create a show like this

Speaker 3 and you spend like a year. working on the pilot

Speaker 3 and you're creating this. And the pilot, I think, was really good.
I think we all like the pilot. It's just, it's a fun watch, even though there's a lot of characters in it.

Speaker 3 But it's smart, it lays out what the show is going to be. So they spend a year on that.

Speaker 3 And then I think you have to do the document that spells out, here's what's going to happen the rest of the season.

Speaker 3 So if they buy the pilot,

Speaker 3 and I think Apple probably green lights the whole season, but they buy the green light the season.

Speaker 3 We already have the pilot. Now you get a writer's room.
You got to go and you got to do the whole thing.

Speaker 3 So they know where this is going in the pilot.

Speaker 3 And there's only one episode left.

Speaker 2 That's why I'm like, maybe it just is Sam, you know?

Speaker 3 Yeah, maybe it's that simple.

Speaker 2 Maybe there isn't like one more twist coming. Maybe it's just Sam.

Speaker 3 The only other one from everything they've laid out, knowing that they probably have sketched out at least the first season, then they have no idea what's going to happen, is there's no way it's Barney, right?

Speaker 3 No. I think Barney's got to be safe.
Because he's a little crazy, though. He's a wild card.

Speaker 2 Barney is interesting. Nick is another one that I've seen floated around.

Speaker 3 And that would

Speaker 2 solve some problems for Coop if Nick is taken off the board entirely, I guess.

Speaker 3 From a motive standpoint, what are the reasons?

Speaker 2 Sam clears motive, right? She hates him. They're going through a messy divorce.

Speaker 3 $20 million, all that stuff.

Speaker 2 Coop has his own motives potentially in terms of whatever. We know Coop didn't do it because we were with him.
So everyone else is like, everyone hates Paul, or maybe he's got money problems.

Speaker 2 But again, like, if it's someone in the neighborhood, that makes no sense to me. So then it would have to be, to Rob's point, just like some random guy he owes money to.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's the art dealer side, though.

Speaker 3 Like, I agree.

Speaker 2 They can't do that. I agree.

Speaker 3 So there's no track on anybody else. You know, that's why I think it has to be.

Speaker 3 Although,

Speaker 3 here's a piece of evidence for Nick. In this episode, he is so generally unbothered by the fact that the woman he was trying to spend the rest of his life with has just cheated on him with her ex.

Speaker 3 Like, once he gets it out with Mel up front, he just goes and like hangs out with Coop for the night. And like, they're just having a night out on the town.

Speaker 3 Clearly, he's a sociopath who's capable of anything. That's all I'm saying.
There is a degree of room to really go from reality.

Speaker 2 Wow. That's what I mean.

Speaker 3 Well, you go either sociopath

Speaker 3 or bad actor.

Speaker 3 It's always a question.

Speaker 2 It's always a question you have to ask yourself.

Speaker 2 The thing that Rob and I have been fixating on is like for the gun to get in the trunk of the car, it has to be someone who knows, as we do, as we've seen all season, that the latch on that trunk is faulty.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And so it could be Nick, because I think Nick has seen it, but like, it's certainly Sam has seen it, but not a random mafioso.

Speaker 2 Like, whoever has that gun has to be someone who knows they can get it into the trunk of Coop's car.

Speaker 3 Can I present one more possible, possible murderer? Please.

Speaker 3 Tori's college boyfriend, whom Coop punched in the dick. Oh.
He has seen the trunk pop open during one of those sequences at the house. Clearly has a motive.

Speaker 3 He's gotten punched in the dick, I think, now several times. Yes.
He's working some stuff out. Maybe he's trying to frame Coop for murder.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the question is, was his goal, was his role in the show just to be punched in the dick over and over again? He's the punched in the dick guy. So it's a tough part.

Speaker 2 Is that just the character description?

Speaker 3 Like 20 something.

Speaker 3 He's willing to get punched in the dick multiple times. His agent selling him for other roles.
He's the punched in the dick guy in season one.

Speaker 2 He got punched in the dick by the John Hamm.

Speaker 3 Wait, the framing John Hamm with the gun.

Speaker 3 It's funny that we're calling him John Hamm and not Coop, but I just like, he's just John Hamm. Every time I see him in anything, I'm just like, that's John Hamm.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But it's funny, the framing piece of it maybe is a bigger clue.

Speaker 3 Because now it's like,

Speaker 3 who has a real reason to get him in trouble, which would be the second husband would Amanda Pete's boyfriend or husband? Are they married? No, boyfriend.

Speaker 3 He would have the most reason to try to fuck Coop over. He's already taken everything he could take from him.

Speaker 2 The reason I'm suspicious is like the timing of it in terms of Sam finds out that they're on to Coop at the police station and that's when the gun makes its way into Coop's car, which is why I feel like Sam had to have put the gun in his car.

Speaker 2 Whether or not she's the one who pulled the trigger, I think is a question I'm willing to ask. In terms of who put the gun in his car, I feel like it has to be her.

Speaker 2 And yeah.

Speaker 3 But you, you two likes Olivia Munn as Sam, I think more than I do. I do for sure.

Speaker 2 Okay, tell me what you don't like about it.

Speaker 3 I just don't think she's as good of an actor as him and Pete. I think she's got a pretty limited ceiling for where to go, whereas I think that's a great part.

Speaker 3 And if you put like, put Carrie Koon in that part. Well, this is an unfair part of it.
I'm just saying.

Speaker 3 I'm just saying. Put Carrie Koon in my job and she's back.

Speaker 3 I know. Not to sound like I'm on first take, but I think there's a lot of meat on that part.

Speaker 2 Let's take Carrie Kuhn off the table. That's unfair.
Who else would you put? I don't think it's unfair.

Speaker 3 This is an Apple show. they spend crazy amounts of money the morning show has a budget that's bigger than the knicks

Speaker 2 like they have the money would you put leslie bibb could you put one of the other fancies in there could you put leslie bibb in that role no because i i i think i need some different

Speaker 3 some different gears with the character that i'm not getting I don't, is she evil? Is she nice? Is she a victim?

Speaker 3 I can't read it because she's playing every scene that, not to sound like Martin Scorsese, but

Speaker 3 she plays all the scenes the same way, even the coffee, coffee fight.

Speaker 2 Real low point of the show is the coffee shop fight.

Speaker 3 But that should have been a cool scene. It was cool.
Because you have people videotaping it. It just, I don't know.
It got kitschy. It got very kitchen.
Yeah, it got very kitschy.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Absolutely.

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Speaker 2 What did you think of the clubbing montage, Bill?

Speaker 3 I mean, that's why I'm here. Okay.
Not here on the podcast, but I'm here for the show. It's like they kind of ran out of ideas for episode eight.

Speaker 3 And they're like, let's, these three guys, one of whom just cheated on the other guy's current girlfriend who's his ex-wife whatever and they're fine now because he punched them in the face once and let's go do cocaine it's a touching portrait of male friendship i would say and barney who's like i think you're up to you kind of got me run over by a car in a certain way from a certain point of view let's go to the club uh and then we've got those two randos who work for coop who are like we've got a bunch of cocaine i thought it was great i had a great time for 15 minutes we ended up at a country club we're driving a cart around it's all of it i thought was really compelling when the two finance standards than both of you.

Speaker 3 When the two finance bros showed up and Coop hits them with the look with the cat dragged in, just an all-time white guyism. You're like, okay, we're in the zone now.

Speaker 3 This show understands what it's trying to be. It understands what it is.

Speaker 3 When they're on the golf course and Coop is talking about how he doesn't even understand the rules of the world anymore, he thought he understood them.

Speaker 3 Bill, that was me after game one of the Eastern Conference finals. I don't know what is possible.
I don't know what world we're living in, but we're here. And

Speaker 3 I thought Barney had a really good

Speaker 3 i think barney's a good actor who's that actor oh yeah he's he's really good and he's a he's like a writer and an ep on the show as well so like i thought his monologue was really good and kind of summed up where we were after eight episodes with the show itself like what's the point of all this i don't know i didn't expect that to come out of him

Speaker 2 um no barney's been consistently great i really like that actor i just don't think i need like again his home life but i really like all of his scenes with i agree john ham do you know who um i can't tolerate and i just i'm gonna out him right now we got a lot of text from jacobi about this as well is the detective character that they brought in at the end of the season i'm just like what's happening

Speaker 2 what is this energy why are we doing this here at the end of the season i don't understand it at all feels like generic ai detective it kind of does

Speaker 3 there's another person that i think is actually really good is it cat the oh the attorney the attorney yeah yeah she's great i agree yeah she is great And part of my issue was half watching the first couple episodes that I forgot she was the sleeping with her boyfriend.

Speaker 3 And I was like, I was like, oh, yeah. But I think she's really good.
I like her. I think so, too.
I think like having her as an actual character on the show beyond just.

Speaker 3 mom who's sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend has been a boon.

Speaker 3 And having her like kind of dragged into this situation against her will where it's like she has this self-preservation instinct to not be outed to the neighborhood.

Speaker 3 And so she's temporarily aligned with Coop.

Speaker 3 But then you also have this part where Coop can't tell her the truth because he doesn't want to fuel the gossip machine about what he was actually doing at the murder scene.

Speaker 3 And so then I think that puts those characters at actually a pretty interesting impasse.

Speaker 2 Rob, is this why you want the court case to be season two? You just want it to become the cat show.

Speaker 3 Oh, you mean so you won a trial season two?

Speaker 3 When she gives Coop the speech about how like she doesn't think a jury will find him to be truthful, I'm like, we are just literally doing presumed innocent.

Speaker 3 Like we were just beat for beat, setting it up. And sounds great.
I enjoyed that and I would enjoy this for you.

Speaker 2 Do you know know what I think they should really do? They should make season two like a crossover. It's a presumed innocent,

Speaker 2 you know, your friends and neighbors crossover court case season.

Speaker 3 That's a great idea. I agree.

Speaker 2 Let's franchise that.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. Jake Joanhall is all of a sudden in the show.
Let's go. I would watch it.
The guy who had the heart attack, but it turned out he just had indigestion.

Speaker 3 He's in there.

Speaker 2 Bill Kimp, what is he doing?

Speaker 3 Sirens? Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's not a heart attack. I just, it was that burrito I ate.

Speaker 2 Did you want to talk about the Amanda Pete of it all?

Speaker 2 Do you want to get your Pete takes off? Yeah, I do. Okay.

Speaker 3 It's important. All right.

Speaker 3 I'm a huge fan.

Speaker 3 I think her career is really interesting. It's almost like to dive into sports for me and Rob, but it's the athlete that I've just felt like never found the right team.

Speaker 3 but was always really good and everybody always appreciated them. And I think what's interesting about her career is she never had

Speaker 3 the one thing

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 you would say, like, like everyone knows her for the obituary, like Tom Cruise dies, and it's like Tom Cruise, star of Top Gun, and then they'll let Mission Impossible. And they'll let.

Speaker 3 I think everybody would have a different one. I was telling Joanna that one of my wife's favorite movies is A Lot Like Love with her and Ashton Kutcher.
It's a weird one. I know.

Speaker 2 That's a classic. They used to play that on Comedy Central all the time.
Did they?

Speaker 3 It's a rewatchable. It was always TBS, TNT, Comedy Central.
It's got great music and she's just amazing in it. And she's so good that Ashton Kutcher is actually good in it.

Speaker 3 And he's not a good actor, but he's good because she's good.

Speaker 3 She had the whole nine yards, which I think was when she really hit. And she's been in a bunch of stuff.
You know, she, she has a family.

Speaker 3 Like she really scaled back from acting because she was raising kids. But, but I see her in this show and I'm like, man, there's, I just think she's been really good now for 25 plus years.

Speaker 3 And I wish there were more things we could point to where like, she was awesome in that. She was awesome in that.

Speaker 2 I do feel like for a while, for I don't know what reason, like, she was on Brockmeyer for several seasons, but I think for like a while, she became like

Speaker 2 David Benioff's wife was like the thing she was most known for, which is totally crazy or like absolutely insane.

Speaker 2 For me, the number one, and this isn't fair because it's definitely a supporting role, but like what goes at the top of Amanda Pete's obituary, a really morbid way to think about this, is something's got to give.

Speaker 2 She's really, really good in that movie, supporting, but like she's really, really fun and good in that movie. Rob,

Speaker 2 what's your Amanda Pete?

Speaker 2 Is it Studio 60?

Speaker 3 No, Bill mentioned it. It is the whole nine yards for me.
A movie that I think does not get the respect it deserves. And also,

Speaker 3 if we're, if we're setting up the template for like suburban malaise plus murder that is this show, a lot of it is right there in the whole nine yards.

Speaker 3 And I think part of the reason you would cast her in a part like this is you know she can play this sort of off-kilter, walking-the-line tonality pretty well.

Speaker 3 I actually think, other than, and I say this term not because I like this term, but because I think the show would call this a cat fight in terms of what happens in the coffee shop, it seems to really revel in this idea of like these two ladies are hitting each other and we're putting it on the internet.

Speaker 3 Other than that, I actually think the Mel stuff is pretty good on balance.

Speaker 3 I think some of that is like, I think Amanda Pete is really good, but setting up this idea that that is a self-destructive character in her own right.

Speaker 3 Like she's on like a parallel journey to Coop in which her pain is like linked to him and obviously related to their relationship. But that character has a lot going on.

Speaker 3 And Amanda Pete as a performer has a lot going on in a way that I think has really sold me over the course of the season. You know, fist to cuffs be damned.

Speaker 3 We've talked, CR and I talked once about Studio 60 on this feed actually after Matthew Perry died. And the first few episodes of that show are fascinating because

Speaker 3 all the bones are there for a show that should have been on for a long time. And there's a lot of self-inflicted errors.
But what's interesting about it, rewatching it is Amanda Pete's great in it.

Speaker 3 And Matthew Perry's great. And in a weird way, it was the best either of them had been in like a real big thing like that.

Speaker 3 And what's weird about that show and her is that she gets pregnant in real life during that. And it kind of changed how they had to

Speaker 3 do the show because it was supposed to be this whole moonlighting cat and mouse game with her and Matthew Perry. And then she got pregnant in real life and they had to kind kind of write around it.

Speaker 3 And then Sorkin started doing Sorkin stuff. And then all of a sudden the show's just canceled.

Speaker 3 But when you watch the first couple episodes of that show, like,

Speaker 3 you know, there was a reason

Speaker 3 there was a her versus Julia Roberts argument for a couple years there about who was in the late 90s about it felt like they were on each other's corner. Wow, really?

Speaker 3 Yeah, after whole nine yards, it really felt like Amanda Pete was, I think, going to become

Speaker 3 a massive star.

Speaker 2 An incredibly beautiful, jaw-based assessment of.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, there's no question.
It's like she, and Julie Roberts was a little older, but it was like Amanda Pete is now coming and she's the next version of Julie Roberts and get ready.

Speaker 3 But, you know, Sandra Bullock took some of those spots. Reese Witherspoon took a couple and she just

Speaker 3 never quite happened.

Speaker 2 I think, I think you both are right in terms of identifying that like Amanda Pete, like I was going through her roles and a lot of the roles are like wife and girlfriend.

Speaker 2 Like that's a lot of what she's played. But like

Speaker 2 it has to be something i think the word rob just uses like off kilter like there's something slightly unhinged about her energy in a great way yeah and like if mel were just

Speaker 2 coop's wife who cheated on him because she felt neglected or or he wasn't checked out of their marriage or she was going through her own midlife thing or whatever it is but like Mel who vandalizes cars and steals things and like all of that stuff is I still don't really want to have a meal with her, but I am like interested in her.

Speaker 2 She's an interesting character.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like I think that's the threshold that the show is trying to reach: is like, can enough of these people be interesting while also being damaged and kind of weird and sometimes unlikable in their way?

Speaker 3 And it seems like there's a wide range of opinion on Coop with that, Bill, as far as like some people really like resonate with him.

Speaker 3 Are like, we've gotten some emails and comments that are straight up, go Coop. I'm like, I don't know what show you're watching with all due respect.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I think we kind of waffle episode to episode where there's sometimes where John Hamm is like undeniably charming and there's some times where this character absolutely sucks. Jesus Christ poop.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So yeah, where are you, Bill?

Speaker 3 Well, I think that's an important point going back to Amanda Pete, too. We shouldn't like her character.

Speaker 3 Like, think about fundamentally, her character starts cheating on her husband with one of his best friends. Yeah.
And then takes all his stuff and kind of sends him down a spiral.

Speaker 3 She should be the villain of the show.

Speaker 3 And I don't feel like she's a villain at all

Speaker 3 because I like Amanda Pete. And then you look at John Hamm.
It's like, this is fundamentally like not a good guy.

Speaker 3 Why am I rooting for him? But that's the TV conundrum of the last 25 plus years. I'm rooting for this person that's definitely not a hero.

Speaker 3 Making excuses for their conduct.

Speaker 2 But like, this is such a different proposition for me than Don Draper because like. John Hamm is Don Draper.
I am rooting. I'm endlessly fascinated by Don Draper.
I am rooting for him.

Speaker 2 For Coop, I'm kind of like, I'm glad he got arrested. And like, I don't want him to go to jail for murder he didn't commit.

Speaker 2 But like, you know, this guy needs, like, to your point, if the whole point of the story is like, this guy lost everything, lost his wife, lost his kids, lost his house, lost his job, lost his car.

Speaker 2 No, he has his car, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 How can he get it back? What lesson does he have to learn to get it back? Then shouldn't we be rooting for him to like have a rude awakening when he's in the jail cell?

Speaker 2 He's like, this is the most honest moment I've ever, first honest honest moment I've ever had or something like that.

Speaker 3 No, you know what I'm rooting for? Him to get out and start stealing shit again.

Speaker 3 Does that make me a bad person?

Speaker 2 No, for the fun of the show, I need season two to be him stealing more stuff and like blackmailing his neighbors into doing things for him. Like that's, I need the stealing to resume.

Speaker 2 That's what I need for the show.

Speaker 2 Definitely.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. Stealing plus blackmail is an interesting, like if he has kind of his tendrils in this entire community and is like manipulating all these people for his purposes.

Speaker 3 Like we set up earlier this season, he's seeing, you know, the SAT answers or the exam answers in the drawers.

Speaker 3 Like he's seeing all this information as much as he's seeing all this like very expensive stuff. And I would love to see the show capitalize on that more, as it has with Kat.

Speaker 3 Well, so the two fundamental questions are, is everybody else going to find out he's been stealing? Because he tells his buddy. when they're just hammered at the golf course, but he probably forgets.

Speaker 3 He's conked out. He's out.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Also, we should say, Barney also says during that conversation, basically, I wouldn't care if you did commit murder, to which I was then sent down a spiral of, do I want the ride or die friend who doesn't care that I commit murder, or should I be bothered that my friend would not care that I committed murder?

Speaker 3 Robin. That's Joe House for me.

Speaker 3 He wouldn't judge either way. No.

Speaker 3 Joe House.

Speaker 2 I would care if you committed murder.

Speaker 3 See, I feel like that's where I want to be. I want the kind of friends who would care.
But the two things that haven't been resolved are the when will people find out that he's been stealing shit?

Speaker 3 And then who murdered, who murdered Paul?

Speaker 2 Not to bring my like nerdy ring reverse stuff into this, but this is like any sort of superhero show where it starts out like someone has a secret identity. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Thief or whatever.

Speaker 3 Coop is Daredevil.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Coop is Buffy the Vampire Slayer or whatever.
And then like brings a couple friends into

Speaker 2 the group. And then like at the end of the show, everyone knows that this person is a superhero.
But at first, it's like, who are they bringing in? So like Elena's in on it. Yep.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But like, is Barney? I want Barney in on this so that he can like wash the money. I want Mel in on this so that she can like get her shoplifting

Speaker 2 off. Yeah.
Like exactly. So I want the criminal enterprise to grow a bit as we as we move forward in the show.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I wonder if they've structured this out or not. Because I don't know.
There's a chance it was just like, hey, we can get John Hamm. He liked the pilot.
All right.

Speaker 3 Let's try to figure out the and but they don't. Like what you just laid out where this becomes basically Ozark.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And it's him and Barney are just running this organized crime ring with their and stealing from everybody they know. It's like, okay, I would watch that.
Yeah, well, that sounds great.

Speaker 3 You heard it from the two finance bros. As soon as Coop left the office, everything went downhill.
You know, he has a managerial mind.

Speaker 3 He has a mind for organizing people and things.

Speaker 2 Well, this is another thing.

Speaker 2 Did we bring those guys in this episode to let us know things aren't going well at the office so that Coop will be offered his job back before the season is over?

Speaker 3 I had that thought too. Seems possible.
It feels like there's a come forth. So So he actually comes back.
He gets his job back. He actually has real shit.

Speaker 3 And then he also now has these skeletons of the stuff he's done.

Speaker 2 But is it like, does he want to steal anyway? Because once you've had a taste, you can't walk away from the line.

Speaker 3 That's how I feel. I feel that every day.
Yeah. Every time I walk into a Target, I just want to still take some toothpaste.
And they started locking the camera.

Speaker 2 Were you a Bill? Were you ever like a shoplifter?

Speaker 3 Oh, good question. Never.
Not once.

Speaker 3 I stole

Speaker 3 when I was six. I stole a pack of hockey cards once from a drugstore.

Speaker 3 I actually stole three packs or football cards and I put them in the closet. My mom found them and I immediately broke down and confessed.

Speaker 2 And that was it.

Speaker 3 Immediately.

Speaker 3 That was it. I was done.
I was like, I'd be a terrible criminal. I folded in five seconds.
Well, think about this too, like compared to where we're going in season one.

Speaker 3 We know they already picked up season two before we ever saw an episode.

Speaker 3 So that makes me wonder, was this, did did they have the first two seasons figured out? So everything we're laying out is where we're heading.

Speaker 2 Sometimes they sketch the whole series out. More and more studio, like networks want that.
What's your whole series?

Speaker 3 Yeah, but you can't do that sometimes because if you have a character that doesn't work

Speaker 3 and those are in big plans for season two, season three, like I would imagine they're probably not feeling like Amanda Pete's boyfriend is going to be a massive part of season two. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is not the Nick show. Absolutely not.
It is not.

Speaker 3 Although I have to admit, getting the scene last week where he was being questioned by the police while shooting free throws was just something I've never seen on screen before.

Speaker 3 So, you know, we're creating new avenues for procedurals here. It feels like he's getting a little better than he was the first couple episodes.
He's now passable.

Speaker 3 He can hit a corner three every once in a while now. It's about all he can do.

Speaker 2 One of our, yeah.

Speaker 2 How much is Allie involved, the sister stuff? Like, how much is that?

Speaker 3 That's it. You talked about earlier about stuff I'm not positive I care about.
Allie's another another one it's like

Speaker 2 she can go unfortunately yeah i mean like i think they gave we talked about this at the beginning i think they gave him allie that sounds like a terrible way to put it to make him more likable like he's nice to his you know troubled sister and so he's not like a complete asshole but um

Speaker 2 her side plot with this dude bruce good lord deeply boring and terrible. Don't like it at all.

Speaker 3 Incredible episode for Hole, though. Yeah.
So great. great vinyl.
Joe and I were just talking about this, Bill. Do you think Bruce feels whole-coated to you?

Speaker 3 Is that a guy who would be into Courtney Love or not?

Speaker 2 Does he have Hole on vinyl? Bruce, that guy

Speaker 3 didn't feel that way. No, absolutely not.
I think he might actually like the Backstreet Boys in Sync Era might have been super exciting for him. Skipped grunge to void bands.

Speaker 3 Yeah, or he might have just like Kid Rock right away.

Speaker 3 Who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I said Blink 182, but

Speaker 3 Blink 182, right?

Speaker 3 he has the can't hardly wait playlist on his spot

Speaker 3 adding extra songs to it. Yeah, I don't hold.
He did not seem like a whole guy. No, absolutely.
We're a lot of whole guys out there in general. I mean, they basically had one album.

Speaker 2 A real rare breed, honestly. And I don't think Bruce qualifies.
Bruce the quarterback does not qualify.

Speaker 3 I have some questions about now that I know it's season finale. Yeah.

Speaker 3 What do we know about the season finale? Is it an hour and a half? Is it an hour?

Speaker 3 I think it's probably a slightly longer but normal length episode. Not a double, Joe, right?

Speaker 2 No, it's not a double. I can look it up while we're talking.
What else do you, what other questions do you have, Bill?

Speaker 3 When does this show come back?

Speaker 3 I think the turnaround could be fairly quick for something like this, right? It doesn't seem like a super heavy lift in terms of production design.

Speaker 3 Obviously, you got to get the schedules aligned, but it's mostly Ham and Pete and presumably Munn if she comes back. Otherwise, I think you can get these people back in relatively short order.

Speaker 3 Well, Sam's I'm shooting morning show right now.

Speaker 3 And I know this because he was on Amy Polar's Pod, which is a great podcast you can find on the ringer. There we go.
How about that? How about that cross-promotion?

Speaker 3 He was in front of a big red hot balloon doing the video part in the beginning of the Paul Rudd thing. And he was between scenes on the morning show.

Speaker 3 So that means they haven't even started filming this yet.

Speaker 2 I think you can get it next year. Maybe late next year, but you could get it next year.

Speaker 3 Bigger question is: Apple kind of back

Speaker 3 for TV? Are we in a better spot with Apple in summer 2025 than we've ever been? Where it's not actually surprising when they have a show that I like, it's like a 61-minute finale, okay?

Speaker 3 So, a little longer, yeah, a little longer. This last episode was like 48 minutes or something.

Speaker 2 Well, so you're not a severance guy. What else are you watching? You're a morning.

Speaker 3 I'm not a severance guy, but I appreciated the content and what it meant to the ringer. Like, as you know, I root for content.

Speaker 3 You content at all times. I'm a studio guy.

Speaker 2 You like this studio?

Speaker 3 I watched every episode of the studio. I wasn't always doing backflips about it,

Speaker 3 but I thought it was really interesting. I thought it took some swings.
I don't know if I'd watch every episode 10 times.

Speaker 2 I think Severance was such a massive hit for them that they are sort of

Speaker 2 drafting off of that to a certain degree. So I think people like when you have such a massive hit like that, people get used to coming to the platform.

Speaker 2 And so then they start like, you know, this is every streamer's dream. Then you just start clicking around.
What else do you have available? I'll watch the studio. Oh, I like John Ham.

Speaker 2 I see his face on this tile. I'll watch your friends and neighbors

Speaker 2 sort of thing. So like Apple, I think

Speaker 2 it's really dependent on whether or not they have one of those tentpoles. Do they have a Ted Lasso? Do they have a severance?

Speaker 2 They've got these like high highs and then just sort of these other things that burble along below the surface,

Speaker 2 which is like something you could say about a lot of places, but not something like HBO. People are always going to be interested.
What is the new HBO show? I'm probably going to like it

Speaker 2 sort of thing. But Apple, it's really.

Speaker 3 Honestly, this should have been an HBO show.

Speaker 2 I think it should be a Showtime show. I think the Coke montage.

Speaker 3 Oh, it would have been a 2012 Showtime show. You're right.

Speaker 2 The cocaine montage felt like pure Showtime to me.

Speaker 3 There's something about that comp, though, about like a 2012-ish Showtime show into the Apple TV model. Like this, there is a broader, like, this is solid.
You know, like, this is a...

Speaker 3 between 6.5 and 7.5 most weeks, like pretty watchable, solid product that I feel like Apple is turning, turning out on a pretty regular basis between like this, Presumed Innocent, even some of the stuff like silo or hijack.

Speaker 3 Like, there's a lot of stuff that's in that range of just like, I like watching this just fine. And am I going to think about it a ton after it's done?

Speaker 3 Probably not, but I've had a decent enough time with it. They're good at putting the one star that I know who that star is.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Vince Vaughan, what has he been up to? Let's watch Bad Monkey. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, like sort of thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I don't know about back.

Speaker 2 Like Apple is just always kind of here, but also then I'll get I'll get ads for an Apple show that they're like the fourth season, and I'm like, of a show I've never heard of and don't know anyone who's watching.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 So I mean it's starring like Eric Banna or something. Like it's some big star who we really like.
It's like, I just had no idea this existed. No.

Speaker 3 Do you still feel like the world exists where, because this definitely used to be the case, where each network had a specific show that felt like a show that they should have?

Speaker 2 Like, for example,

Speaker 3 Showtime. Like the affair felt like a Showtime show and not an HBO show.
And I have no idea why. Right.
Weeds felt like a Showtime show. It would have been weird to have that on HBO.

Speaker 3 Now we have more streamers. Like

Speaker 3 Hacks

Speaker 3 really probably is a 2010 Showtime show, not an HBO show. But now it's, I guess, a Mac show.
I don't think it would have been an HBO show. There's some show that HBO has coming with Rachel Sennett.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Have you heard about this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where it's like basically girls in Silverlake. And it's like, that's definitely an HBO show.
That would be weird if it wasn't an HBO.

Speaker 3 But do you feel like there's still delineation like we used to have?

Speaker 2 I mean, I feel like I know what an FX show is.

Speaker 2 And like, I, but there are some things where they're, some of, some platforms are still just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. So there's no such thing as a Netflix show.

Speaker 2 There really is no such thing as an Netflix show.

Speaker 3 They're the one that I have no handle on. And it's almost like the algorithm is creating it.

Speaker 2 And then like Paramount, I understand what that is.

Speaker 2 HBO, I understand what that is. And FX, I understand what that is.
Hulu is another one where I'm like, I don't know what a Hulu show is.

Speaker 3 What is Hulu? What is FX on Hulu? Like, I have no idea of the difference between

Speaker 3 those two. I can't unlock Hulu for the life of me.
You go there and it's like, a high school shop teacher's been murdered next on a five episode documentary. It's

Speaker 3 like true crime crossed with, I don't know what, and then weird movies.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Hulu is confounding.

Speaker 2 They don't have an an idea.

Speaker 2 Well, right now, the Handmaid's Tale is their identity, but they don't have like a consistent brand identity.

Speaker 2 Netflix on purpose doesn't have one, but I feel like Paramount has one, FX has one, HBO has one, and then Apple is like kind of chasing whatever hits, you know.

Speaker 2 So, Severance hits, and then they're sort of like, Are we the sci-fi? Are we the sci-fi people? And so, they put out a bunch of elevated sci-fi that is all kind of okay, but not great.

Speaker 2 And so, then the morning show hits, are we the like glossy celebrity celebrity first

Speaker 2 adult drama place? You know, so I think, I think they're, they haven't figured it out. And I'm not sure they're going to because as a tech company, I think they're always like trending first, not a

Speaker 2 story first necessarily kind of company. So I don't know.
That's my.

Speaker 3 See, I feel like they're star first. Yeah.
I feel like they want a star for the square at the top of Apple TV. And it's like, that's Rhys Witherspoon.
I know who that is. There's Vince Fawn.

Speaker 3 I I know who John Hamm is.

Speaker 2 When Apple TV did their launch event, which they did in Silicon Valley and they like flew up all the LA TV people to come to this event and they did it in the middle of a product launch.

Speaker 2 They did it in the middle of like, this is our arcade. This is our credit card.
And this is our TV. And here's Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Anniston.

Speaker 2 Like these are, we've got all, we can afford all of the top glossiest thing. And then Ted Lasso, which wasn't even part of that, came out of nowhere.
And that's the thing that made their brand

Speaker 2 something that people return to. So it's like they don't know, they've got shrinking.
So they can put Harrison Ford out there, but like they don't, they have no sense.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they have no sense of what to push and what not to push at Apple. Things come and go and it's baffling to me.

Speaker 3 So I thought you said the perfect word for it, Joe, which is glossy. Like it is star-driven.
It is shiny. There's like a certain quality of production.

Speaker 3 Like it's clear that these shows are not cheap to make. Like, they pour a lot of resources into them, but they also don't look the best all the time.

Speaker 3 It just looks professionalized and a little bit generic.

Speaker 3 I would say, ultimately, they churn out like a generic kind of show that, again, it is quite watchable, that would appeal to a wide enough range of people, or at least hit a certain part of like the four-quadrant demographic that Apple needs to hit.

Speaker 3 I think they're pretty good at that machine. It just feels like a machine.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and we talked about the basketball parallels of a show like

Speaker 3 the show we're talking about today, where you have, you spend the money and the two stars. Yes.

Speaker 3 You have to kind of cut costs, especially if it's a big cast. Whereas like if it's HBO, like they're

Speaker 3 every single part that they're casting, they're really putting thought and money behind.

Speaker 3 Plus you have the NBA equivalent of like the really good player who is willing to play on a veteran minimum for the HBO show,

Speaker 3 who will take lower than their rate to not be a star for a supporting part. And then here you get, with all due respect, Mark Tallman.
You know, it's just like, this is, this is the way it goes.

Speaker 3 You know what? The one show that's different than that is Morning Show,

Speaker 3 where they can get real stars to come in for three episodes or a little arc and they're like famous people. You know, like Ham was like barely on that show last year, but he was on it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Ditto Landman. That seems to have been like partially what Ham has been up to.

Speaker 3 But like, I think that I fully support it. Keep getting those checks, John Ham.

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 when you think about something like White Lotus, a show that we all like covered, and you think about how they cast that show, they're less interested in like,

Speaker 2 you know, we've got this star and more like, we're going to turn these people into stars.

Speaker 2 So like Patrick Schwarzenegger, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, all these people come out of, you come, you know, Amy Lou Wood, you come out of White Lotus season with your stock way higher than when you went in, which is not the Apple model.

Speaker 2 Apple's like, is your stock high? Or is there a nostalgic stock for you?

Speaker 2 Because like Vince Vaughn's stock is not necessarily high, but there's a nostalgia factor of people like, I love the Wedding Crashers. Like, I want to, I'll watch whatever this Vince Vaughan.

Speaker 2 Oh, and Vince Vaughn gets to do exactly what Vince Vaughan can do in this show. So they're just going to feed that to me.
I know that I like it, I know the taste of it. I know I like it.

Speaker 2 I'll watch it. And like, HBO, for the most part, not always, but for the most part, is trying to like create

Speaker 2 stars out of their storytelling.

Speaker 3 So well, and the show padding, the episode padding is the other issue. Like you're talking about stuff you could excise from this show.

Speaker 2 This could be a six, a six episode season, I think, easily.

Speaker 3 Right. We said White Lotus probably should have been seven.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think this could, I think you could have gotten away with seven with this, with this show, but

Speaker 3 six maybe, but seven feels about right.

Speaker 3 But then you'll see some of these Netflix shows. Like my wife and daughter were watching this Netflix show that's like number one on Netflix about the missing author.

Speaker 3 It's in another language. It's one of those where the person's mouth is moving, but that there's

Speaker 2 a dub sub.

Speaker 3 Come on.

Speaker 3 My family is a dub family, not a subtitle family. Oh, no.
Because subtitles involve my daughter looking up for more than 40% of the show.

Speaker 3 But that was a show, I think it was like four episodes.

Speaker 2 And it seems like, you know outside america there's more experimentation with that where it's like the almost like adolescence which was you know well that's and that's how this all started is like you know as you know uh and i love to talk about this we used to have 22 episode seasons that were just like consistently premiering every fall and we were kind of chasing the uk model of the six episode or 10 episode season that premieres every couple years.

Speaker 2 Like that's, that's, we, we couldn't, we stole that from the Europeans. And it's no surprise to me that they're still doing it better than we do it.
Uh, you know, it's their model in the future.

Speaker 3 I feel like Friday Night Lights was one of the last ones. That first season, which I just re-watched,

Speaker 3 um,

Speaker 3 it's 22 episodes. It's like four seasons in a season.
They're doing, there's so many different things, plots, and you kind of can't believe they did it that way.

Speaker 3 It's like you just, the OC was another one, which we talked about, or it's like you just shot your wad on four seasons of material in nine months. Friday Night Lights nowhere to go.

Speaker 2 Friday Night Lights is such an interesting case because they like did that. And then their second season famously flounders.

Speaker 2 And then they figure it out and they bring it back. Right.
Which is not always the case.

Speaker 3 Well, the writer's strike happened, which helped. People graduated and then they put some real thought.
They made shorter seasons for DirecTV.

Speaker 2 We get East Dylan. That's the thing.

Speaker 3 They have to really reinvent the show mid-stride because of that.

Speaker 3 And I think that's one area where, especially if you're writing younger characters, like a high school-based show, it kind of makes sense to do one really long season and pack it all in while those actors are kind of in the zone you need them to be.

Speaker 3 I wonder about that with your friends and neighbors, too, as we're talking about like what plot threads are still going to be on this show. Is Tori going to be on this show if she goes to college?

Speaker 3 Is she just going to be like off and comes back occasionally? Is she going to be pulling our attention?

Speaker 2 Is she a junior or a senior?

Speaker 3 I think she's a senior. Well, she's deciding if she wants to go to Princeton, right?

Speaker 2 She's taking the SATs.

Speaker 3 Did she take the SAT? No, she's going. She's deciding on where to go to college next year, I thought.
Yeah, I think it's next year. She's a senior.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because I mean, if they're visiting, I think, unless she's especially precocious, which I don't get the impression that she is. I think she's a senior.
Okay.

Speaker 3 I'd like to volunteer my services for my imaginary sports movie TV consulting company.

Speaker 3 I just was really appalled by some of the tennis. Really? In this season.
Not ham's, I hope.

Speaker 3 He's got a monster for it.

Speaker 3 Ham actually plays. So I was fine with ham, but the

Speaker 3 prodigy, the prodigy daughter, some of the grips on the rackets were a little suspect. I just, you're like, that should be Western, that should be continental.

Speaker 2 Speaking of Apple, I have a really important question for you, Bill. Have you checked out any of the trailer footage for the Owen Wilson golf show stick?

Speaker 2 And will you be consulting on the golf grips on that show?

Speaker 3 I have only seen the trailer. I'm obviously intrigued.
This is a world that...

Speaker 3 Feels like it's been sitting there ever since Tin Cup for a TV show.

Speaker 2 Rob and I were talking about whether or not to cover this. And I was like, rob i am the world's number one tin cup enthusiast i really want to cover

Speaker 3 is this an audition for the rewatchables i think it is wow

Speaker 3 but i i love tin cup i'm a big fan no but tin cup's a great example of that was a movie that also would have been an awesome tv show which is the sweet spot of a sports movie where it's I would have watched this for two hours.

Speaker 3 I would have watched it for 12. So yeah,

Speaker 3 I also like Owen Wilson still. Of course.

Speaker 3 I think that's a good example of if you're building a show around somebody, I still feel like like he's got some some stuff in the fridge you're like were they in wedding crashers put them on an album plus tile and i'll watch it you could do worse people like that yeah i thought vince vince vaughan and nanas i thought i thought he was good in that i like that movie did you watch on netflix the italian grandmothers susan sarandon talia shire come on uh we got to catch up you know wow

Speaker 2 definitely wrote that ai definitely wrote that's fine susan saranda and talia shire are italian grandmothers uh She's 78 years old.

Speaker 3 Still crushing it. Susan Sarandon.
Still got it. Still got it.
That was free advice for Apple. Just literally cast anyone who was in Wedding Crashers.
Like, I will watch the Rachel McAdam show.

Speaker 3 I will watch the Christopher Walken show. I will watch the, you know, the Bradley Cooper show.

Speaker 2 Whatever I want to do. Tyler Fisher, Tyla Fisher, of course.

Speaker 3 Let's do it. But when do you age into

Speaker 3 you're officially the star of now? Like, is Jennifer Lawrence that's still like two years away from she's an Apple?

Speaker 2 She's at Cam with Robert Pattinson right now. I I think she's got like 10 years before she's on an Apple.

Speaker 3 She's still a movie star. Yeah.
Because you would have said Natalie Portman, no way. But then she was on Apple last year.

Speaker 2 Here she is. Here she is.

Speaker 3 And there's Kate Blanchette too. Like, I guess it's not really a matter of your stardom.
Maybe it is an age thing.

Speaker 2 I think if once you've hit the bottom of the barrel for Wedding Crashers, should you move on to old school? Like, where do you go if you're an Apple algorithm caster?

Speaker 3 I don't know. Well,

Speaker 3 I will say they've stumbled into some smart

Speaker 3 genres.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 And they're taking a bunch of swings, spending a crazy amount of money. So the batting average is probably

Speaker 3 worse than we realize when you think of all the ones that have just come and gone. Think of all the shows we haven't covered on even on a podcast like this.

Speaker 3 And Andy and Chris will sometimes do like the obligatory segment, but not want to keep going.

Speaker 3 But I think Apple's batting average feels a little higher, but I don't know if they're just making more shows.

Speaker 2 Okay, here's my question. Here's an Apple brand that I'm circling.
is apple

Speaker 2 the platform

Speaker 2 for like

Speaker 2 highbrow dads

Speaker 2 because paramount's paramount's got like that's the dad beat right like the standard dad beat but like hijack and is that highbrow though i mean i think it's well glossier

Speaker 3 glossier than what taylor sheridan is doing the liberal dad like i don't know no this is a good point because your friends and neighbors is this a 50, is this a 50-stage show? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Whereas Landman's a 50-stage show. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So it's like, but it's it, but you're like, Bill, you're watching your friends and neighbors, and you're like, this is for me. And I agree, it's for you, Bill Simmons.
And I love that for you.

Speaker 2 But then, like, so what is that consumer that they're going after? The East, the West Coast Elite Dad? Is that, is that who you are?

Speaker 3 Well, that's so. There's a really interesting scene at the beginning of the eighth episode with the five women on the sauna.
Yes. Yes.

Speaker 3 All. And first of all, I actually thought that was a really good, well-written, well-acted scene.
I was like, who are all these people? Can they be in the show more?

Speaker 3 But this whole, there's this whole world of these people, their kids are kind of grown up and they're all hanging out with each other and they're just gossiping about everybody.

Speaker 3 And I thought that tapped into that.

Speaker 3 And then, of course, we never saw those people again. No.
I mean, they've been around the margins, but like, I agree.

Speaker 2 I really liked the sauna scene a lot.

Speaker 3 Because there was that party scene too that they had when Ham's kind of thrown him back. And I was like, this is

Speaker 3 need a little more of this. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Which I think, this is why I think season two of this show will be better because they're going to lean into all this stuff more and they're going to get rid of the stuff that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 I hope so. I hope so.
Maybe a full trial season.

Speaker 3 You know, we'll see. Maybe there'll be something for everybody, including

Speaker 2 innocent crossover that we deserve. Peter Sarsgard and his bolo tie.
It's all I want. Can't wait.

Speaker 3 Joanna, one of your best ideas ever. And you've had some good ones.
Yes. Oh, thanks.

Speaker 3 because in the 90s when they when they would do the nbc crossovers those were like unbelievable when or like when allie mcbill is on the practice yeah yeah

Speaker 2 that stuff works i was just thinking the other day do you remember that i know that you're a friday night lights watcher were you a parenthood watcher bill yes

Speaker 2 remember when landry was on parenthood oh yeah like he showed up in a late season to record in their the brain recording studio bizarre no they stay they stole a few friday Night Lights people because MBJ was on there too, right?

Speaker 2 No, but they stole the, they used the actors, but this was like it wasn't just

Speaker 3 like

Speaker 2 Chris Victorious showed up on Parenthood to like run

Speaker 3 almost.

Speaker 2 I loved it. So yeah, give us Dim Dennis.

Speaker 3 They shared, was it shared showrunner, shared EPs? Like they had some

Speaker 3 Jason Katums, that's right, was on both. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The first time that ever happened, my favorite show ever, The White Shadow, the center on The White Shadow, ended up on Sane Elsewhere as the janitor in the hospital. Oh, no.
Warren Coolidge.

Speaker 3 And his basketball career had gone sideways and he was just working as a janitor. The same character.
The same guy was, it was Gwyneth Paltrow's dad was the showrunner of both shows. Bruce Paltrow.

Speaker 3 He created both. Bruce Paltrow.
So he created White Shadow. This was the star of White Shadow and they ended up as a janitor on Sun Elsewhere.
And it was like...

Speaker 3 You can do this?

Speaker 3 Take a character and put them in another show. It was like fucking amazing.
So anytime they do that, I think it's always exciting. I agree.

Speaker 3 I want the Chicago PDification of all of the Apple properties. You know, all of these characters can show up on any show they want, like interview Coop as a murder suspect on the morning show.

Speaker 3 Like, I think there's lots of room here for people to cross over.

Speaker 2 That's a universe-breaking prospect, though, because John Hamm's already on the morning show. How do you have

Speaker 2 ham it? You can't.

Speaker 3 I can't. Yeah, that's very easily.
Michael B. Jordan just did it.
Like,

Speaker 3 any great actor can double it up. Okay.
Double ham is never a bad thing, I would say.

Speaker 3 All right, we wrapping up. We did it.

Speaker 3 This is good. Thanks for having me.
Rob Marlowe.

Speaker 3 So you guys are covering the season finale.

Speaker 3 I feel like I'm higher on the show than Rob, though. That was

Speaker 3 true in the podcast.

Speaker 2 I think you're higher than both of us, but that's okay.

Speaker 3 I'm enjoying, especially the murder mystery part. Do I have any confidence they're going to land it in the finale? I do not.
But I can't wait to be surprised. I can't wait to see what happens.

Speaker 3 All right. Keep your fingers crossed.
Thanks to Kai for producing as well. And we'll see you next week with

Speaker 3 the finale. You two.
I'm not going to be on that one. I just want to get my takes off.

Speaker 2 Good to see you. Good to see you, Bill.

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