‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Premiere

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I support staff to clear the room.

Stand up and walk now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor of TheRinger.com.

Enjoying me in the studio with the green apple on his head.

It's Andy Greenwald.

I'm excited.

I'm excited, too, man.

We are releasing this on Sunday night.

It's the watch.

We're really just talking about the first episode of Euphoria Tonight.

And by first episode, do you mean the first episode ever?

You're like pure driven snow.

It's unbelievable.

Do you think you have a ton to add besides the fact that it's your first episode?

How long is this episode?

People can email us at thewatchespotify.com.

They can follow us at the watch pod underscore on Instagram.

You can watch us on Ringer-TV on YouTube.

And you can watch us on Spotify where you can also listen to us.

And you can also listen to us on a bunch of other podcast platforms.

Greenwald, we are here for a grand experiment.

Rarely in the history of this podcast, the 14-year history of this podcast.

Do we basically like say, hey, this show in the middle or end of its run that one of us

hasn't watched ever before?

We're just going to jump right in.

And I think it will give us a unique, if possibly not particularly functional take on

this show.

First episode of Euphoria, the third season, much delayed in between Sam Levinson did the

idols and Dayam made one of the best movies of the year, the drama.

She's in Dune.

There's obviously like a roster of actors on this show that have pretty much exploded

Sydney, Swini, Jacob, Alority, etc.

I have been watching the show more or less since the beginning.

I think I caught up on season one a little late.

I was a real fan of some specials that they did, some like one-offs that they did and

really loved season two.

I'm seated.

I'm seated not only for this show, but I am seated for you.

Seated.

Yeah, I am seated.

I am seated.

Like, you know, like my popcorn and my soda.

I just can't wait to hear what you have to say about this because I don't know what

the experience is watching this without the lore, without the context, without anything.

And I want to be clear, I didn't Google anything.

There were multiple times during my viewing of episode 301 where I briefly wondered, perhaps

the path to history.

I just mad he knew her.

Yeah.

I don't know who's Maddie.

Alexis Demi's character.

Who's Alexis Demi?

She is the manager of Dylan, the little actor guy.

She's...

Oh, right.

Okay.

You did watch this episode.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

How's he been on the show before?

He hasn't been on the show before.

Okay.

See, this is what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Nor did I do my other tried and true method of watching television, which is continually

text you during the experience.

Now some might say that I didn't do that because you were on stage in San Francisco talking

about basic instincts with Mallory Ruben.

Yeah.

But others might say because I was showing great restraint.

Sure.

And I think I think I should...

I think I should be a huge expert.

Maybe next episode you want to like look up some stuff.

Nope.

Okay.

Here's why.

It's exhilarating.

I loved this experience.

It felt freeing and just...

I feel uncaged and some of whose opinions are famously caged.

Get ready.

Here's genuinely what I mean is what I love most about television, ongoing television.

Why I talk about it, why I work in it, why I watch it, is that experience of cumulative

narrative storytelling?

And the investments that we make in a show and we make in the emotional lives of fictional

people and in the creators to continue to deliver what we grow to expect from these characters

or to surprise us in ways that delight us in rapturous even further.

That commitment, that relationship, Chris, can also be a yoke.

It can drag things down and at its worst it's what we see with the kind of toxic fandom

that exists online or even inside of our own bitter hearts where shows cease to be what

we want them to be or more terribly cease to match the highs with which they announce

themselves and the experience of watching it becomes one of diminishing returns into

resentment and disappointment.

I have been guilty of this in my personal life and I've been guilty of this on this podcast

as well when shows that I have loved miss the mark.

Or miss the mark perhaps arbitrarily that I have set for it and it is very, very hard

to engage beyond that point.

So to turn on a show with no prior knowledge other than the fact that I mean I will cop

to the fact that I am aware that this is the chaos menu of seasons that this was many

years in the making that the wrangling of talent was quite difficult that there were

aborted other versions of the show in which maybe they were still in high school at the

timing worked out differently.

I think there were different pitches.

And detective show we had heard about which sound interesting to me.

I am also aware that the filmmaker creator, Autor behind the show Sam Levinson made the

idol.

I will not be referring to that show again during this podcast today during the next five

minutes.

Okay.

No.

So to turn on this episode and be greeted with a riot of color and outrageous situations

was fun, thrilling, exciting.

I didn't have any baggage.

I was not laden, I was not weighed down by anything and certainly not by dozens of tightly

packed balls of fentanyl.

That's right.

Although stay tuned for the after show in which so it was a you could hear me get excited

about this project over the last few weeks and it actually is super fun.

And you can tell me your feelings coming out of from a different place, but I did I

do have a sense that entering into this season, this premiere with this attitude is actually

helpful because if I had investment in these characters as young people over time and not

just not just the normal time between seasons quite a long period of time now since the show

debuted, I would probably feel a type of way about where Sam Levinson has chosen to pick

up their stories again.

Because I'm entering a new world where these are the stakes and this is the aesthetic and

this is the tone.

Okay.

Let's see.

Yeah.

I think that there's been some well reason criticism of this season so far.

I've only watched the first one critics were given the first three to check out their

six this season.

To sort of saying like what is the reason for euphoria beyond being euphoria like beyond

making more of an incredibly successful series that HBO as a financial and vested interest

in having stay on the air.

It's got three of the biggest stars of their generation on it.

You really like, you know, like you can't let that opportunity get away from you and cracking

the story like you mentioned has been something that has gone through several iterations reported

iterations.

There's a Kim Masters piece in the Hollywood reporter that came out after the idol that

went through some of the, you know, at least behind the scenes stuff that was being anonymously

for the most part talked about.

But like that you like mentioned, Rue becoming a private detective, Rue becoming a surrogate

mother.

What are we going to do?

Is it going to be like shortly after high school?

Is it going to be a massive time jump?

You have to accommodate, you know, these people's schedules, but also them aging, but also

they're different artistic interests as the years go on.

I was kind of curious for you.

You know, obviously there's like the.

No, it is not jumping into the two towers without ever having heard anything about hobbits.

And just being like, I guess now I'm just watching this, although I do wonder if somebody

could do that because there's just like this big fight.

I like it.

With this, like did you find yourself being emotionally caught up in it at all?

Or was it simply, wow, what a what a boisterous riot is like daring piece of filmmaking this

was?

The right question to ask.

I think Zendaya is such a, this is not a hot take.

This is a freezing cold take.

I think she's an incredibly unique and charismatic star.

When she is on screen, like all rate movie stars, I'm invested in her predicament.

And one of the things that this season, in this episode does very well is drop us right

into a circumstance that is outrageous and thus complete.

It's like jumping.

It literally is cannonballing into a pool.

She is, I'm meeting her and she is a drug runner trying to cross the border from Chihuahua

into Texas.

Yes.

In a manner that is quite risky.

It's purely cinematic.

It's like the area she drives her car up to this sort of, up this ramp up to the top

of the border wall.

She can't get the car to get down to the ramp going down.

So she is symbolically stuck between stations on the top of the wall and the car will neither

tip backwards nor forwards.

And she has to do this incredible, balletic move out of the car and down the ramp so that

the car doesn't fall on her at any given point and there's a bird.

It's like a really good silent movie sequence.

Chris cinema.

It speaks to a point that you made that I was, some might say gently resistant to others

would say outwardly hostile to.

In our discussion of a show, I said I wouldn't mention again the idol that you were making

the case at Sam Levinson on his own is a filmmaker to watch.

Is an interesting director and creator and visual storyteller.

Starting apart from the drama and so popper of that show, this opening sequence makes

the case for itself on its own terms.

And frankly, that was kind of my feeling about the entire episode.

Am I particularly invested in the things that seem to motivate him?

I would say through one episode, fairly strong trending no, but the way in which he is

telling the stories, particularly the Roo story, which maybe this is intentional and

maybe this is a good thing is just so much more compelling than any of the other stories

that are a part of the show.

And maybe that's an argument for why continuing a season three makes less sense than let's

just tell a new story with Zendaya, whatever the case may be.

I thought that there was such a dynamism and such a flair.

It's a kind of thing that our old friend Sam Esmail would often say on the podcast, which

when he approaches things, if the visual storytelling is not just worthy, is noteworthy,

is eye catching, is dramatic, is invested, is full of specificity.

He's in.

And generally, that's not how I approach television because I'm maybe it's conservative

mind or maybe it's just the more right or driven mind or maybe I'm just nervous about

people who are going to have to do it 24 to 48 more times.

I want to see if the thing has legs.

I don't really care so far with this.

The audacity of the opening was enough for me.

Yeah, this is a show that does not have or at least to my knowledge is not a blueprint.

It is not a show about X and Y needs to happen for X to be a complete statement.

I mean, I'm sure that this will probably be the last season of Euphoria.

I'm just because of the complications behind the scenes in terms of mounting it.

But it can do whatever it wants.

I think the heart of the show is Ruse Addiction Story and it's been the most gripping parts

of it for me.

I know people who are like, I liked Euphoria, the fucked up version of 90210 that it was

in the first season, you know, and the kind of, post-tumbler kind of take on teenage

dreams that it was in the first season.

But to me, left the atmosphere when it became a far more cinematic rather than television

storytelling mechanism of if I want Rude to run across the city all day for an entire

episode, like we can do that.

We can make an episode about that.

They're obviously all these other plot lines, but to me, she's the heart and the head

of the show.

But the stuff that's happening around it, it's interesting to try and make the two meet.

If I had any problem with this episode, it's seeing how they're going to get those two

sort of roads to converge eventually.

With only six episodes, I'm sure they'll figure something out.

But I really, really, really, really am invested in the Rue character.

Her performance is remarkable.

And then, you know, as far as what you're talking about with the visual aspect of it, not

only do I think he's a talented filmmaker, I just really like the way he shoots Southern

California.

Yeah, the light, the yellows, it's really, really the more garish stuff like the, you know,

Cindy Swini and Jacob all the way to his house.

Yeah.

And like the idea of like bulldozers moving sand back and forth.

And, and, you know, this was relevant to a conversation we were having in our previous

episode about, you know, completely incomparable show like your friends and neighbors that I'm

going to comp anyway, which is like when characters are having hyper real, let's say,

charitable conversations that I don't recognize as conversations that human beings have with

each other.

If you put them in like a garish 80s cocaine, Narnia, I'm paying a different sort of attention

because the hyper reality extends past the dialogue.

It becomes the whole point of the scene.

So the way that they they're living in this place that is like a combination of the house

from wild at heart and also an old age home, imbues the entire thing with a sense of, yeah,

cinema, but also of a comprehensive storytelling.

You might not like the story, but someone's telling you something.

Yeah.

And he's able to push the limits of what's in a frame.

So when, uh, when Cindy Swini and Jacob already are having their big dinner where she's

explaining to him that she's going to join only only fans to pay for her flower budget

or her wedding.

What was the candle budget in that scene?

That was what I was going to say is that you could do that and say like, there's low

lighting or there's five candles and they have like 80 candles going and that might be

why these shows take so long and cost so much.

And, you know, the amount of times they may have to go in and whether those are fake candles,

but like, it's just pushing it to the limit of what people can accept, you know, and

then seeing like the results of that on screen is pretty impressive.

If you have, this is a tough argument to make, but I'm going to try to make it.

The best version I would think of an opportunity to have a budget in HBO Sunday night show,

ascendant stars, like a Lordy and Swini.

The best version would be to have something incredibly compelling because you have all

of these, you have the best ingredients at your disposal.

The worst outcome would be timidity.

We have the best ingredients, but I'm just going to make the food analogy.

I'm just going to make a, I'm trying to make a lobster mac and cheese.

I'll put some truffle oil on it, you know what I mean?

The second best option is I'm going to, you know, paint their faces like I'm a fucking

Dutch master and I'm going to have them gulping down giant 80s martinis and eat it and shoveling

spaghetti into their mouths what they talk about online pornography.

Yeah.

Well, it is a choice.

A widely held misconception that only fans is only.

I've heard this a few times in this episode.

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areas terms apply.

I have another cultural comp, but I do think in the service of if we are even servicing

it like can I can I talk about the storylines and you can tell me or not tell me.

Yeah, I mean, I have not rewatched to so I will do my best, but I am not.

I'm not going to fact check you brother.

I don't even want to know the Lord.

But from my understanding here's where we're at.

I knew ambiantly that that Zendaya's character was named Rue and had addiction issues.

If I were watching this cold, I am I would not be aware for addiction issues.

I would be aware of the fact that mistakes made in her past have made it impossible for

her to have a future.

And that's where she is.

So she finds herself outrageously running drugs and and curry being a courier for drugs

along with a friend or a mild mannered woman who seems to also have a lot of red.

I'm worth a Kelly who has a lot of redneck farmer associates where they cook or make

pills.

At the same time, although we don't yet see the overlap, Jacob Allordy is living with

his fiance by Sydney Sweeney.

Cassie.

And they're living in as we can't keep describing this mansion, this fun house mansion anymore.

And she is trying to make content so that she can have income as well, both to pay for

their wedding and to find value in this world.

And he is sort of a hairy.

She's taken over his father's construction company is trying to become a developer.

Building retirement and old age homes in Southern California.

Instead of a like a would be a career, recoruso type.

Sure.

I'm building it.

That's that's interesting.

Thank you for putting it.

Yeah.

We also are seeing mod appetiles character working for television executive played by Sharon

Stone making a CW type nighttime soap.

And nighttime soap, something that definitely doesn't exist anymore, but sure in this world

it does.

And that's and then someone else is managing an actor and that crosses that storyline.

That's true.

Maddie is managing one of the actors on LA nights.

Maddie and Lexi are still friends.

And I will say one of the hardest things I left was when Maddie accompanies her client

to a premiere and it looks like an Amazon straight to streaming movie called If I May,

If I Might.

Yes.

I believe it's all HBO and HBO Max and everything's on the Warner Brothers lot.

Yes.

Look, I think.

And that's really, I mean, like you've got like on the surface level, you've got it.

So Rue has become basically indentured to Lori over the course of the end of the season.

It really turns into the uncut gem second half of good fellas sort of vibe of the show

really comes out and Rue gets in deep with this character.

Lori, there's some stuff that I think will be explained later that happened perhaps

in between the two seasons and some of that is going to be related to the character play

by Angus Cloud, who tragically passed away in between season two and three and the actor

himself.

You don't know about jewels.

I won't spoil anything about Hunter Schaefer's character.

The only thing I would just really say is that the Coleman Domingo Diner scene is sort

of a to call back to the other.

It's a call back.

Like a continuing variation on the theme of what their special was.

I mean, there was two sort of stand-alones.

One was Rue's kind of trying to accept a power greater than her part of the 12 steps

and the other is about Hunter Schaefer's jewels character.

And this conversation that they're having in the Diner about Rue kind of needing to get

her head around the idea of a god and God being in control and not her is obviously fundamental

to her saying, I thought maybe God might be this other drug dealer or rather a pimp who

will pull me into this other world and away from Lori.

And that's our guy, Mr. Echo.

As our I name Mr. Echo.

Who shows up, will she deliver drugs and uses the bathroom and then becomes friends?

Well, I think she gets first, she's nearly killed because it turns out that the drugs

that Lori gave her to give to this new guy was fentanyl and released with touched with

the young woman dies of an overdose.

And everything in the scene is beyond over the top.

And again, because of the absolute DGAF, DGA meets DGAF, which is how I would describe

Sam Levinson's aesthetic.

I'm weirdly okay.

Like even the candlesteen, I'm going to get my notes that you're referring to.

I wrote, this is everything looks good is stupid.

But okay, I was enjoying it.

And again, when you have I still think I still laughed like the thing he does as much as

he gets great images, he knows exactly what people are good at or I see people in a way

that I think is very specific.

So the Zendaya performance we can talk about, I'm pretty mesmerized by her at this point.

I think just coming out of the drama, one of the things I love so much about her is her

lack of vanity.

Totally.

Totally.

As far as like Rue who's like run ragged throughout this series.

But also like in the drama, like her interest in taking on difficult roles, but like more

like roles that fuck with her public persona a little bit.

Yes.

There's a scene in this episode where I mean, she is famously one of the most beautiful

stars in the world and also one of the most fashionable and always people are checking

and my kids are like love her, but also look for her red carpet looks like they want

to know that is part of her mythos.

And so then for her in this show to be a dirt bag, but also a dirt bag who is placed next

to all of the young women at what's the guy's name, the Alamos party and her just be like,

wow, you look great.

That's cool.

Look how you look.

Like that is such an intentional turning everything on its head that works.

So he sees Zendaya in a certain way or their collaboration.

Sam Levinson.

Yeah, Sam Levinson does and they've, you know, they did a film together, like they've

done a lot of work together.

And I think he sees like the comedian in Sydney, Swini.

And I think that cut the biggest laugh of our marathon recording today.

I think that's the highlight of this little snort.

I think he sees the humor in her in her persona.

And I think she is in on the joke, but like 80% in on the joke.

I think White Lotus was that too.

This is funny, you're to me.

Like her, her, her, her Cassie is funny, you're to me than the White Lotus thing.

I, these, those don't, I think those are the only two things I've ever seen her in.

I have some other films I can recommend if you'd like to check them out.

Yeah, please give me a list.

Maybe it's, it's moving night with the girls on Friday.

Let me know which one I should fire up.

House made anyone but you who double feature.

Yeah.

Can't wait.

Um, the, yeah, like in terms of like the, the setup for Alamo, you know, wearing tidy

whiteies and a bathrobe and true like last act of Boogie Night's fashion, deciding to,

do William tell to her, to William tell him if she's a rat or not or worth keeping around.

And is, is such a provocation and such an absurdity and it is entirely in my opinion earned

by the noise she makes when she survives because she is so to your point, he knows how she's

going to react and that you get the sense that she maybe that's how she laughs when she's

surprised by something or delighted by something or the real her quote unquote that, that people

who work with her may know.

And what comes out of her is so natural and, and riveting that that, that those moments

make me excited to keep watching the show.

I think, I, I think that there's big picture with seems to motivate our friend Sam is on

some level deeply uninteresting to me.

The show that the voice of the show and he writes the show alone and directs it comes

alive on two, two moments to me.

One is how stupid writers rooms and group think are inside Hollywood.

When everyone's doing like little snaps out about how we need to do representation right

in the show and he's like, he's like my parents watching MSNBC.

He's like, God, the other moment is when Jacob El Hurdi says, it's hard to build in Southern

California.

This is a motivating issue, you know, among a certain class of people here.

I'm sure I think that I find less compelling, but within that, the comparison that I would

make, you're not a big, you're not a big disowning guy.

It's just okay.

It's okay.

That's okay.

Look, I've read some spelling arguments in the abundance or, you know, the abundance

sector.

Um, the, the comparison I would make is bread Easton Ellis.

Yeah.

Who is a writer who I, despite everything, still have a lot of time for it.

But the reason I bring it up and then I'm sorry, so I'll let you go, is that the early

books that he wrote when he was very, very young and basically the same age as the characters

he was writing about, so less and zero and real so attraction.

I loved so, so much because, and maybe this was just me also being young when I was reading

them.

I felt that they were like absolutely like, you know, intentionally provocative and over

the top, but there was this like beating heart of universally youth in them or yearning

or something or telling the world that it's phony from the inside of that world that I

found really, really riveting and magnetic.

And I've continued to be interested in him and try to read him even as the books have

become paler and paler imitations of that same thing and even sometimes commenting on them

or revisiting them.

The reason I do it is because his angle and his point of view about this place that we

now live in remains so sweet, generous and it's just, it's just him.

He is his own genre.

And I kind of felt the same way here where obviously I didn't watch the high school seasons

but clearly we have moved past high school.

And so I finding what's being, what motivates him to be like just spinning out from, it

feels like the stuff that really motivates someone about the world who has has rarely

left the three to three area code be like don't go south of the border, it's drug runners

and fundamentalist religious people and all of that.

And it felt kind of pat and very, you know, not particularly stakes you are gripping.

But the point of view on it is kind of compelling and funny and clearly deeply felt.

And that, that's the moment that you're like, I think you're referring to the moment

where Zendaya's first confronted with the idea that she needs to swallow like 20 balloons

of birth of drugs, her acting in that scene and her facial reaction to the like what she

has to do which is 4KY jelly over balloons and choke them down.

So she goes and gets her friend fade to help her.

Big week for KY, it's on your friends and neighbors too.

Oh good for those guys and by their, they're reaching out beyond the, they're finally

getting their name out there.

It's going to be a big guys.

I'm not a financial advisor but by loob stocks.

At the hotel I was at, and it was just like a really normal hotel.

I, if you've ever gone into like the hotel general store and the KY jelly is like lower

right hand corner and they're just like just in case.

Just in case this weekend goes a certain direction.

Yeah.

That's what makes hotels great.

And I like, but it's just like you and a woman who's like selling like, you know,

tourist trap like, like, Kuturmall memorabilia and also come in there and just like,

they're going to her magnet.

Yeah.

Toothbrush, Pringles.

Snickers.

In a sex story.

That's fine.

He's in dance performance during that whole scene makes it because yeah, it's completely

like a cliched like south of the border.

Everything goes upside down.

She doesn't have a simple task.

Her task is to save herself.

She gets in her own way.

The second she arrives at this place, the one thing she is told by Darryl Brickipson is

don't do any, don't touch anything you're not supposed to.

He's, he's given a performance to love.

A second.

She is taking off her shirt, dance with all the girls, hanging out, drinking, smoking

weed, even though she's supposed to be sober.

California sober, I guess.

So she is a participant in her own downfall.

She always has been in the show.

She wants to feel something maybe more than she wants to feel clean.

Yeah.

A question about that.

I know I said I wouldn't ask too many questions about it, but like, is it was your take

away from this episode that she is clean and sober from the addictions that she, like

she was on pills and things in the past?

Is the California sober like actually how you view her after this episode?

Or was that meant to be it?

I think she was like breaking her edge really.

I think that she's just in a ton of trouble.

Yeah.

There is a thing, you know, I was, it is funny how we consider this stuff because I was

reading, um, this is a surprise no one.

I was recently reading a Scottish crime novel from the 80s and, uh, in it, like the, the

tough, but tender police inspector laid laws like trying to, you talk frankly to a woman

who's had a tough time.

She's trying to get off the heroin and trying to leave the country and start over because

she's, she's, you know, in the Glasgow criminals are circling around her.

And he's just like, you look a bit peek it.

I'm sorry I put you through this.

Let me get you a gin and tonic.

And she's like, thank you.

It's like immediately.

And, you know, maybe this is just my, like modern, you know, brain where I'm like, she

shouldn't be doing that.

Right.

I think for, for generations and including on the show, I don't necessarily that they

make an explicit statement when she's talking to Coleman Domingo about the degree of her

sobriety and whether or not it's just like off the hard stuff, but still like every

once in a while, but like when she was smoking a blunt and drinking whiskey, I, I, with,

with Amos, I was like, well, we're, we're going into some, some dark, dark waters.

I'm curious about the reaction to does talking about it this way because I would imagine

that people who are euphoria fans are going to have much stronger feelings about the season

because it does seem like such a dramatic break from the show that they fell in love with.

That's, that said, what I'm enjoying about it is not the, the visual pyrotechnics of

it.

It's something that you've been alluding to constantly through this conversation, which

is the, I mean, there are two kinds of visually expressive directors.

One type is just so in love with the images that they make that I, that I find it a little

bit, um, airless.

And it chokes the life out of the thing to make the perfect picture.

And then there's a type of director who just, I just fucking love actors, man.

And nose actors.

And as you said, can bring out aspects of actors that they see, not necessarily they alone

see, but that they have some unique perspective on.

And that was what I was picking up on in this episode, which is like, I'm going to put

these people on the screen.

And I'm going to let, I'm going to enjoy giving them a chance to enjoy it.

Yeah.

I had invested multiple years of emotional and intellectual sweat equity in Rue sobriety

journey, only for it to be this.

I might be a little bit ticked or I might be a little bit impatient with it, but I didn't.

So I'm having a good time.

Yeah.

And I also think that it's become a little bit less grounded in TV reality and is now going

into almost like a kind of California dream scape reality.

I think I always appreciate directors who understand a region so natively that like the

they can do a crane shot of a back lot, even though the back lot that they're shooting

like, you know, they're shooting like just like a nighttime soap or whatever.

But he can make that feel like Lala land.

And then he can also shoot the desert and he can shoot Calabasas and he can shoot a

rundown apartment building.

But like he loves it.

Like I can see in his through his eye, the everyday things that he has always kind of been

like, no, it's like the these courtyard apartment buildings are beautiful and the washing machine

that's in the separate laundry room is beautiful.

It's a good point because I think that among the many, many, many criticisms that I had

about the idol, one of the loudest was I felt deeply that the show just absolutely couldn't

decide if it was a satire or celebration.

If it was like, scabrous and judgmental or it was somehow, um, credulous of like, stardom

and the power of super stardom and artistry and at least through this episode, through

my completely pure eyes here, this, this felt affectionate.

So maybe there, that's why there's a little bit of, um, I would weirdly harmony between

filmmaker making his show passionately about things that I don't know if I even care

about that much, which is back lot shenanigans and, um, expensive real estate opportunities.

But doing it in a way that is pretty, pretty, um, inspired.

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This show is, I wonder if it's the last of its kind.

How would you categorize it?

Well, to me, what it's become is it backdoored its way from going from like, what if teens

but really fucked up?

You know, to the last vestige of the, like, we'll give Nicholas Wending Reffin a 10 episode

show.

Good.

David Lynch, you want to make the return cool?

Like, Carrie Foucainaga, you want to shoot all of True Detective cool?

Director Park Chen-Wook, go off, King.

Well, even he, not on Little Drummer Girl, but on the sympathizer.

It seemed like that got like a little bit taken away from him midway through or there,

like it did not feel like totally a vision.

All his.

TV is coming home.

TV is coming back to being TV.

Like, everyone's in a while, you'll have somebody who's like, I direct it all of this

or whatever.

But like, the idea of television as this grand playground for directors specifically to

flaunt in and I'll say this too.

I have been generally pretty underwhelmed by what people who I thought were movie stars

have decided to come back to television for or dip down into television for to do.

I would like to believe that, you know, the opportunities to do long-form storytelling

and to play challenging roles and, you know, like as the middle class or the sort of mid-tier

genre movie disappears, you get to go do Maravise Town on HBO.

I think that's like what you should do.

When I see people who are like, say, you just wanted to be on a fucking TV show, like,

you were beautiful, man.

Like, what are you doing?

Like, you're Harrison Ford.

Like, what are you doing?

Like that stuff, like kind of, I understand it's like maybe the hours and the location are

better, but it's, it's uninspiring to me.

Yeah.

To season daya and Sweeney and Alwardy be like, we're kind of like at the top of our game

right now in terms of like what we can get made and what we, you know, weathering heights

and house made and drama, all like recent obvious successes.

Whether they were contractually obligated or psychologically terrorized into returning

to the show, I have no idea.

But they seem to be like invested in doing it.

Alwardy, I can't quite tell yet.

Well, and I, I respect the fact that they're like, now this is good.

This is different.

And we're going to leave our mark on this.

I don't really know how many more of these we're going to get.

So I'm going to enjoy it.

What's the Alwardy quote from that's going around about the season where he's just like,

maybe we did something good.

Maybe I don't know.

Like some version of that.

Yes.

I mean, he is not the most like, like, I just, yeah, I think he is a pretty stoic, like

interview subject.

I mean, I seems like a charming guy, but like, I don't know necessarily that he gives great

quote.

Yeah.

But I also wonder whether he's just like, I feel like this character really had a conclusion

in season two.

And so now he's just kind of like a ghost living out there.

But also to your point, like one of the things that marks, one of the things that marks

a successful movie career these days in the eyes of people like us, not necessarily

like the people who actually hire anyone because to them, it's like how many animated video

game characters can you voice this year?

But in terms of the, like, let's say the, the people that Sean would be tracking and

put on this list of big stars, you know, the under 35 stars, it does seem to be actors

who are constantly challenging themselves by working with idiosyncratic directors and

the willingness to play in other people's worlds.

And the best of the best.

And this is sort of the decaprio method, you know, are following that.

The shale mains and day are probably chief among them.

And so if in that regard, and I, I'm not pulling a full 180 here.

I'm not putting Sam Levinson who did make the idol in the same category as any of the

great ascendant filmmakers of our time yet necessarily.

But I do think that this felt less like George Clooney having to go back for season six

of the year because he was under contract.

And more like, I'm going to go do what?

Where for how long?

Okay, we'll see.

I am going to approach this with the same playful spirit that I brought to.

What was I mean, there's the drama he did last year about the North, the great, we talked

about it.

The great walk north.

I've got terrible about this.

But that, you know, to that or to Wuthering Heights or to Frankenstein.

The narrow road to the deep north.

The narrow road or Priscilla.

Of words of there.

Yeah.

You can squint and make that make sense.

This is not having to go back and pretend to be in high school, even though you've aged

out and careered out of the role that you have that broke you in the first place.

Buckle up for jewels.

I assume we're going to get her next next episode.

So, Jules is the last remaining major character who from the show who is, who we have yet

to see this season.

Yeah.

So far this is Hunter Schaefer playing and she's a sugar baby in New York.

Is that a spoiler or that was referenced?

It's referenced.

Yeah.

That's in the trailer.

Oh, can I mention the one that my favorite scene of the entire episode?

Please.

I really, really liked Ruiz and Uber driver.

I really liked the Batman scene.

I thought that was a moment when I could see the purity of the vision of like we're making

fun of LA, but we love LA, but we're also not being too heavy handed about like rebuilding

the palisades in the right way LA.

Like Batman being like the city, someone in the back seat doing a Batman voice being like

the city has changed and then going out to like this bum wonder woman.

I also like to listen to the audiobook of the Bible.

That was sick.

I think I've been in that.

Actually.

And it really changed my mind about some stuff.

Okay.

So a shorter Monday episode for us because we just wanted to do a euphoria one and you're

going to be on the road again.

And I am on the road again.

Actually, this has already happened at this point, right?

No, I will be on route to Denver when you hear this episode probably.

So shout me out.

If you see me, do you think when is the show in Denver?

Monday night.

Okay.

So people could still potentially, if it's not sold out yet, people could maybe show up

for the exact flow.

Yes.

That's my dream blunt rotation.

Adam Ross, yeah.

Adam Ross, yeah.

Can I ask you a lot of athletes, Chris, make excuses when they play an altitude and they

say that you know, I can think about this constantly.

Okay.

So do you think you will be affected?

Do you think your performance should be judged differently with an asterisk?

I don't like altitude.

Yeah.

When I visited New Mexico, I took note of its effect on me.

I would say as someone who worked in Altitude in New Mexico, it's no joke.

And does it take a while for the altitude to kick in?

Like if I'm only there for 36 hours, is it going to matter?

I think the main thing, you just need to hydrate more than you think you do.

And that if you, like, if you, let's say you'll have a good show and you'll be like,

ah, fellow is well met.

Let's have a course.

Yeah.

I think the, you know, the meat of the Rocky Mountains, you will have one and you will

touch God.

Like you will be super fucked up from like one light beer.

And that is a really weird feeling.

I would do something.

I'm going to see the grin Denver right now, just be like, what is this guy talking about?

I think that every podcast we do, I actually have just like a model listener in R.E.I.

coat drinking a chorus and like shoveling snow being like this fucking Nancy.

Um, thanks for going on this euphoria journey with me.

I think it's going to be exciting six weeks for us.

I think it's going to be fun.

I, this is, we should do this more because it is very freeing to just engage with television

this way.

Uh, thanks to Kai Kai and Sarah.

We will be back on Thursday with a mega show.

It's the finale of the pit.

We'll have some top chef.

We'll have some other TV kicking around beef is coming up.

So a lot of stuff.

Take care.

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

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