Chris Ryan

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Chris Ryan

Paint support staff to clear the room,

Andy Greenwald

Stand up and walk now.

Chris Ryan

Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor@theringer.com and joining me in the studio he was bitten by an animal and then he became that animal. It's Andrew Greenwald.

Andy Greenwald

That's the best line in the finale of the best show of the year,

Chris Ryan

Widow's Bay, which we are going to be talking about the finale today on the Watch podcast. We are also joined by Hiro Mirai and Katie Dippold, the director and creator of Widow's Bay, which as Andy mentioned is his favorite show of the year. I'm open for business.

Andy Greenwald

Wow. Yeah, you are like those judges who will say that Joe Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Chris Ryan

I believe he won the election.

Andy Greenwald

Cool under pressure.

Chris Ryan

We are going to talk about that. We're going to talk a little bit about this Spider man trailer. I have a couple of questions for the keeper of the war across from I have some questions, maybe a couple of other things, just some programming reminders. Sunday night is House of the Dragon season three premiere. I'll be doing Talk the Thrones with Mal and Joe. But Andy and I will be discussing it on Monday from our usual just sort of left field askewpoint. We'll keep hitting Star City as we're able. And then next week, next Thursday, the bear season five drops. And Andy and I are gonna be discussing it in our usual three, three, two way. I think we'll do three episodes at a. You know, and so we can kind of like live in it a little bit, even though I know everybody who's. Who's rocking with the bear will probably watch it that weekend.

Andy Greenwald

Before we get into it, can we address the elephant in the room for people who watch us on video, which is that we are doing the Michael Keaton Batman, Vicki Vale table scene.

Chris Ryan

Mm. This is kind of. Yeah, it's like Ned Beatty and network.

Andy Greenwald

I kind of.

Chris Ryan

We had a table. We have a larger table here today because we had two guests. Hiro and Katie were so lovely to come by and talk to us about the finale. Do you want to do. Let's just do a little bit of like the kind of the light work.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah. Entertainment housecleaning.

Chris Ryan

I actually do want to talk about the Spider Man Brand New Day.

Andy Greenwald

Me too.

Chris Ryan

Trailer, which dropped about 25 hours ago.

Andy Greenwald

How have you spent the last 25 hours?

Chris Ryan

Well, here's what I've been really interesting. Our buddy Zack Baron wrote a fantastic piece about the making of the Odyssey. And he interviewed Homer. He interviewed Homer. He interviewed Norman Mailer. I believe he talked to David Letterman about it. No, I mean, he talked to Matt Damon, he talked to Robert Pattinson, he talked to Tom Holland. And Tom Holland was the one who jumped out at me in this piece because this was clearly like a life changing experience for him to work on the Odyssey. And so much so that he says it had a profound impact on the making of Brand New Day, which was not only like, did the production of it have to be adjusted so that Holland could essentially star in the Odyssey, I think, or co star in the Odyssey. But learning how Christopher Nolan makes movies and learning how his storytelling works and learning about a lot of his in camera stuff that he does to like make everything feel real led Holland to work with Destin Daniel Cretton, who's directing this new Spider man movie to change the film. So knowing that, I was curious whether you watched the trailer and felt anything different about the movie, felt anything different coming off the screen that looked like not Christopher Nolan had an impact on this, but that this was somehow tended to and cared for in a way that maybe where Marvel works aren't I

Andy Greenwald

Think one of the main things that's gonna be different no matter what. And I think it does look and feel slightly different, certainly from the previous Spider man trilogy. But one of the things that is absolutely fact is that in order to get Tom Holland to come back to do a fourth movie, Sony and Marvel gave Tom Holland an enormous amount of creative control over the film. He was only coming back for a movie that he wanted to make in the tone and style that he thought would be interesting for Peter Parker and Spider man to be in. So that seems pretty clear in the final product. So I think that even predates going to IMAX camp with Chris and Hoyt. You know, I think that he definitely only wanted to come back. It was gonna be different. I think there's been already been pre release press saying that he wanted it to be more grounded or whatever. As a longtime Spider fan, I mean,

Chris Ryan

you're the number one Spider man fan in my life. That is praise you and fantasy, I think both.

Andy Greenwald

Oh, okay. So now we're suddenly walking it back.

Chris Ryan

I have other interests.

Andy Greenwald

It's like when we ask you who your best friend is, it's the same answer. It's you, Sean. You know, Sean is more of a symbiote guy. Sean likes Venom and Carnage and all that stuff. You know, I'm kind of a purist. I have said on this podcast I like the character best when the character is street level and grounded and not wearing an Iron man suit and flying into space. Sure, it is a real tribute to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee that that character can do those things, but I think the character works best when the stakes are smaller or more related.

Chris Ryan

Do you need him to be a teenager?

Andy Greenwald

Well, no. Now he's a young man.

Chris Ryan

Well, I know Tom Holland's 30, and he said, I don't want to be playing Spider man when I'm 30. But I think that's another reason why I think he was like, give me the keys and I'll drive the car one more time around the block.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah. Until the Secret wars comes out. Right. At least one more time, probably. So I think all that is good. And I was very happy to see that, at least in this trailer. He has the most important things to me in a Spider man story, which is personal life anguish and a suit that is not made out of adamantium with a talking AI system embedded in it. That's cool. And also, there's a very long tradition of Spider man being the gateway character who swings down to the West Village to chat with Dr. Strange, which was the last movie. And now up to Columbia and Dr. Banner. Can you help me with something? And Punisher is in this movie. So all that super cool. That said, I'm gonna turn it back to you and say, Chris, brand new day trailer. What is this movie about? Challenge. This is now the third, I think, glimpse of it that we've gotten. And I have no idea what the plot of this movie is.

Chris Ryan

Not unlike House of the Dragon. I feel like I need to refresh my memory about what is going on in this world. So, like, as far as I can remember, both in Doctor Strange. In the Mountain of Madness.

Andy Greenwald

No, but go on.

Chris Ryan

Mouth. Madness.

Andy Greenwald

Multiverse.

Chris Ryan

Multiverse of madness. There's like, Spider man gets Strange to wipe everybody's memory in the world because he doesn't want to be spiked.

Andy Greenwald

This was no way home.

Chris Ryan

This was no way home.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah.

Chris Ryan

And then what happens at the end of Dr. Strange?

Andy Greenwald

I believe.

Chris Ryan

Oh, the ramifications of that start to go wrong, right?

Andy Greenwald

No, it's. The Doctor Strange movie is not relevant. The Doctor Strange no Way Home was essentially also a Doctor Strange movie.

Chris Ryan

But Doctor Strange did that, right?

Hiro Mirai

Doctor Strange did that.

Andy Greenwald

This is like when they're like, who fixed the potholes in New York?

Chris Ryan

Sherlock Holmes made Zendaya forget that man and then she married him.

Andy Greenwald

That's true, yeah.

Chris Ryan

I don't really remember what's, like, at stake or what's happening here.

Andy Greenwald

He felt that the knowledge. Because Aunt May. Spoiler died. The knowing his secret identity was too dangerous. So his best friends Ned and MJ had their minds wiped and they went off to MIT while he remained alone in New York to protect the streets.

Chris Ryan

I think that they're probably still hiding a bunch of the stuff that is like, that is going to happen to him in this movie for a variety of reasons. Obviously, you and I have had some fun trying to get who Sadie Sink is playing.

Andy Greenwald

I don't think we tried to guess. I think we named names.

Chris Ryan

Yes, we did say that.

Andy Greenwald

It's. Sorry, Van, I'm not afraid. Right.

Chris Ryan

It's Jean Grey.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah.

Katie Dippold

Yeah.

Chris Ryan

Which would be exciting. It seems like this movie is going to be about the Punisher.

Andy Greenwald

So this is the trick. This is what I was waiting for. You're acting like, I'm not sure if I'm interested. And then I didn't say that it's all Bernthal.

Chris Ryan

Yeah.

Andy Greenwald

This is Peter Parker. Wayne Jenkins.

Chris Ryan

Fanfic, but are they sports watching? This dude. Didn't he just kill, like, 87 people in his special, like, and now he's just like I'm here for PG13 banter with my guy Spidey.

Andy Greenwald

Let me introduce you to something called comic books. The. The Punisher that hangs out with Spider man is not the same Punisher that Garth Ennis wrote.

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Yeah.

Andy Greenwald

Where. Yeah. Where he like, personally executes people after removing their limbs.

Chris Ryan

Spider Man, Punisher voted for Mamdani.

Andy Greenwald

Wow. Punisher is a Sliwa guy born and bred.

Chris Ryan

The way we get these rats out of the city, feral cats.

Andy Greenwald

The only thing Punisher doesn't like about Curtis Sliwa is he's soft on cats. Like, he does not give a shit. You know what? I think that Peter Parker used ranked choice correctly. You know, I think he probably. I think Brad Lander may have been his number one. But he put Mamdani too, once they endorsed each other and he's happy with how it now. Four years ago, I think you voted for Catherine Garcia, who was the sanitation.

Chris Ryan

No, I remember her.

Hiro Mirai

Yeah.

Andy Greenwald

Let's go. Four years before that. How much time do we have before our Widow's Bay interview? Yeah, I mean, I like the fact I've said this. I think before that I like when the movies echo that aspect of comic books. That there are PG13 versions of the characters who do team ups. And then sometimes when they're in their own respective genre stories, it can get a little bit gnarlier. I like that. My thing is this movie has been presented to us as I. Primarily. Okay, I don't even know primarily. So there's the storyline where he is mutating into some sort of human spider hybrid.

Chris Ryan

Right. Cause he doesn't need like the.

Andy Greenwald

He's shooting it out of his wrist like Tobey Maguire. Again, there is the version of the movie where he is fighting the Hand, the comic book global ninja crime organization that Frank Miller created in the pages of daredevil 40 years ago.

Chris Ryan

Okay.

Andy Greenwald

I do not know why he is doing that, other than, I guess if a global ninja criminal enterprise attacked your city, you would fight them.

Chris Ryan

But sometimes they have like those like, here's gonna be this big villain. But it's like wrapped up in the first 15 minutes.

Andy Greenwald

I guess what I'm saying is I cannot. Maybe this is gonna be genius. Maybe this is gonna be like Frozen two and there is no antagonist other than what's inside of us. But it is odd that a tentpole movie is not telling you what the story is other than, boy, Peter's really going through it. That said, all the tracking suggests that this is gonna be the biggest movie of the last Three years.

Chris Ryan

Right.

Andy Greenwald

So maybe it doesn't really matter. But it is interesting that it's going to be a Punisher team up movie, a Hulk team up movie. A boy is shooting fluid out of himself in surprising ways movie. And also with a ninja global cabal and introduce mutants into the Marvel universe. That's a lot.

Chris Ryan

Speaking of a boy shooting things out of his body.

Andy Greenwald

Can't wait.

Chris Ryan

Did you know that Justin Kuritsky has a screenwriting credit on this and apparently did a full rewrite?

Andy Greenwald

Yes.

Chris Ryan

Challengers, call me by your name.

Andy Greenwald

I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. So the original. Not the original, but Chris McKenna, challengers and queer by that, Chris McKenna and Eric Summer, I think, who had had the credit on the first three Tom Holland movies and were praised for the comedic stuff. Like they brought in a. I guess a. At least on the page, a more serious, more dramatic screenwriter. How do you feel about that?

Chris Ryan

I think it's exciting. I think it's cool. I think his, like, he obviously knows his way around, like, some of the psychosexual kind of like, I'm changing kind of stuff. You know, I think that this is interesting that, you know, he wrote Challenger Zendaya's and obviously in this film. I wonder if there was any like, hey, this guy's really good.

Andy Greenwald

We should work with him at psychosexual transformations. Yeah, Chris, what do you want in a Spider man movie? You're playing. You're doing the classic he's not my guy.

Chris Ryan

I'm. I'm cheering for everybody. It's like watching two countries I don't care about in the World Cup. I'm just like, I'd like to see some goals, you know, like,

Andy Greenwald

okay, but is it like, you don't care about them? Like, Uzbekistan is playing or are you like, oh, Cape Verde. That's cute.

Chris Ryan

It's more like Cape Verde. That's cute. Cool story.

Andy Greenwald

Because I just feel like you're doing your typical, like, you know, dnc sponsored like, you're going to Iowa kind of thing where you're like, how great that we have spiders and men. And then you're also. You're like, do we have room for Punisher in this? Do we have room for psychosexual transformations? Picked your freak. I'm a trendy one.

Chris Ryan

I care about a craft, you know, and if I want to see, you know, what lessons he learned by making the Odyssey reflected in this movie, I want to also see if these superhero movies can change with the changing nature of Hollywood and the changing expectations of audiences.

Andy Greenwald

Look how reasonable he is. You just won my vote back.

Chris Ryan

I don't think in no way Brand New Day is going to make a gazillion dollars. Like, I'm not concerned trolling it at all. What I am interested in is I think that there is a whiff of like, Hollywood realizing that, like, you can put the crap here right. But like, if you're going to go for like the big audiences and you're going to. You want to make something a sensation and something that people have a relationship to, like, we have to get back to deepening people's relationships with this instead of just having it be. Did you see in the post credits, Stinger, Charlize Theron's character showed up. Like, you have to have it mean something more and you have to have it have a little bit more depth. So I'm actually going into this movie with like a little bit of a magnifying.

Andy Greenwald

I'm really glad I needled you unkindly because that was a very, very smart summation of where this is. And I think it's a very optimistic.

Chris Ryan

And I honestly do think, like, for all the shit we've talked about Avengers, they actually have, like, to say nothing of the fact that those are probably gonna be the most expensive movies ever made once they finally finish shooting them or writing them or whatever they're doing. If it's a lot of guys standing in front of green screen not knowing what scene they're in or which movie they're in, I think it's gonna. You're gonna be able to tell.

Andy Greenwald

And not just that, but on top of it. The only emotion that we were able to wring out of this old piece of laundry is from a previous movie or from a previous generation's relationship to a mooted franchise.

Sponsor Voice

Yes.

Andy Greenwald

You know, I think that no Way Home. I mean, as you said, Doomsday and Secret wars will be the test of this, but no Way Home was. I loved it. I thought it was a phenomenal movie emotionally and in terms of spectacle. But it wrung the emotion primarily out of giving Andrew Garfield a send off for the trilogy. He wasn't permitted to finish by Hollywood. That's diminishing returns. So maybe I need to put on my CR glasses as opposed to these glasses, the AG glasses, and say the fact that there is not a clear antagonist with larger ties to Sokovia is potentially a good thing.

Chris Ryan

Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Andy Greenwald

I mean, we got there.

Chris Ryan

Yeah. Ken Burns, Sokovia Coming in 2028.

Hiro Mirai

Oh, my God.

Andy Greenwald

Why has no one done that? Wait, why has no one done. Ken Burns, Marvel Civil War. Why are we only thinking about this in minute?

Chris Ryan

Can we do the Shogun farewell letter? But for a guy who got, like, Sokovia dropped on him.

Andy Greenwald

Dude, the entire thing.

Chris Ryan

My dearest Abigail.

Andy Greenwald

No, then they cut. They're like. And then there was quicksilver. And then it cuts to, like, Elizabeth Olsen, like, wiping away a tear in sepia tone.

Chris Ryan

Where is she? Where's Wanda?

Andy Greenwald

Where's Wanda?

Chris Ryan

She's in jail now, right?

Andy Greenwald

The character. Yeah, No, I think the character's in jail. I think Elizabeth Olsen pulled the Scarlett Johansson ripcord, which is just like, fuck y', all. I'm done.

Chris Ryan

Oh, she's not gonna be in these new ones.

Andy Greenwald

I mean, everybody has a price, man.

Chris Ryan

We'll put a pin in Spider man. I want to talk to you about the finale of Widow's Bay before we bring hero and Katie on.

Andy Greenwald

Okay.

Chris Ryan

We wrap up with Greenwald's agenda fully proven. Correct.

Andy Greenwald

Thank you. I doubted my own prognostication.

Chris Ryan

Raiders of the Widow's Bay Reddit. Andy Greenwald is the Indiana Jones of that. And he figured out that Evan was not in the clear, that he was still going to be part of the lineage of.

Andy Greenwald

No, I never said that.

Chris Ryan

You didn't?

Andy Greenwald

No, I said after. First of all, thank you for my hero's journey.

Chris Ryan

I thought you texted me and were like, I was right.

Andy Greenwald

I was right. But I stopped believing I was right, which is a sign of a good show. Like, I had laid out the evidence coming from the flashback episode that the inevitable last descendant of this curse, inheritor of the curse, would be Evan. And then there was the misdirect towards Ruth. Thank you.

Chris Ryan

It goes without saying that this is spoilers for Widow's Bay and the finale, I guess we could point out.

Andy Greenwald

But thank you for beginning where all these things should begin, which is me proving myself right.

Chris Ryan

Well, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this. First of all, did you ever expect when you were watching, say, episode four, episode five of this show, that you would find yourself in such an excruciating, dramatically tense moment as Tom trying to decide whether or not to kill Ruth, his kindly, if absent minded, assistant who apparently has an incredibly rich life outside of the office? Yes, because he thinks that she is the last line of the descendant of the. Of the colonial era or Pilgrim era?

Andy Greenwald

We have to. I mean, I think one thing. And people hopefully will stick around and listen to our interview with Hiro and Katie. It is kind of sometimes a check on us, because I was prepared to come in here today and talk about, and I will talk about the brilliance of the show. But I also love to celebrate the moments of what feel like very, very clever, very, very thoughtful foresight that you build a character like Ruth into the margins of the show as comedic relief, as texture, as someone you're happy to see as a joke you're happy to return to. But in no way are you expecting that the actor who plays her will carry one half of one of the most dramatic sequences on television this year. Talking to hero and Katie, one gets the sense that they are of the Vince Gilligan school. Katie especially of like, oops, we've painted ourselves into a hell of a corner here. How are we gonna pull it off? There's probably a TED Talk to be given about how genius can come from crises like that. But to answer your question more directly, no. And the fact that the show can at once bear the weight of such intense moral, such an intense moral dilemma and decision making and have you feel it and have it also have these other strands that are so central to the show. How we misplace, how we confuse work for family and how we take advantage of both in all the wrong ways. And then sometimes we all end up being family. And then there's life lessons from a haunted island about how life's always kind of hard and you just gotta do your best and help a woman down off of the porch and then back up again every day. This is maybe good for a whaling town, but I just think the best TV shows are load bearing vessels. And the fact that this series expanded its potential for this episode blew me away.

Chris Ryan

So that's a really good segue into the other element of this episode that I thought was fascinating, which is obviously it was Jeff Hiller's character, Dale coming across this film strip which suggests a underground society cult. We will find out in season two. The show has been renewed to nobody's surprise, of ritual sacrifice, of an almost like practical kind of relationship with the demonic forces of the island. And that there's this relationship between the church bells and how many people need to be sacrificed for whatever is living in the sub, sub basement of the

Andy Greenwald

town hall building just off of the electric chair.

Chris Ryan

Yes. And first of all, like, this is, you know, if you've been watching television for a long time, this is like finding the, the hatch. This is like a move you can pull late in a season to be like, there's another level to the game. You know, I thought that that was really well handled. I was curious whether or not the show's deviating somewhat or like the late period. The late season of the show deviated very fully from Monster of the Week and in fact started to do a dalliance with we are the Actual Monsters. Because what if you put us all in a storm shelter and you know, what if you ask us if we're choosing to choose to solve the trolley question that Tom is talking about?

Andy Greenwald

Yeah, it's a classic writer's room conversation that just went into the show.

Chris Ryan

Yes. I thought that was brilliant. I'm so excited for season two because of this. But there's this funny thing where when this season was in mid flight and it was like, this week it's a sea hag coming out of the fog, next week it is a self help book that is actually a book of spells. There was just this delight of never knowing where it was going. I don't really wanna answer any questions about this show.

Andy Greenwald

That's how I feel. I think even though there was more lore in this final episode than I would've expected, I remain delighted and honestly unmoved by a lot of it. Not unmoved in like it's not working for me in that. That's just not how I'm watching the show. And the more things they tell me, the more am about it. I think again, there's just some, however modest Katie is about the planning and execution of the show. There was a deep level of thinking that went into some, some decisions that could just really bedevil a long running series. And they range from, you know, cell phones don't work. Okay, we, we took care of that to what is the actual population here versus how many people are visiting and what is the relationship to the outside world and how can we keep this going? And one of the smartest things was this ide suggested in the pilot and then brought back in the finale, which is that the island goes through these moods, these cycles and during these cycles crazy things happen that gives them such credibility because if these things were happening 24 7, no one would live there.

Chris Ryan

Right?

Andy Greenwald

No one would visit. There wouldn't even be the chance to make the argument that people should live there. And it also though buys them time. It buys them time to retrench, think about what's gonna happen next. The characters react to it and then dive back in and have things start to wake up again. And potentially they wake up again with other delightful and funny horror movie tropes haunting them for an episode or not. But I think the other template that the season gave Us that is so smart is that every one of those tropes and every one of those hauntings is going to be inexorably tied to a character's emotional life or their history. And so we have a way to continue to be interested in it without it feeling like a stunt. Yeah.

Chris Ryan

There's also, like, so much room for expansion on this show, and I don't know whether or not the core audience is going to be happy to hear that, but, like, you could obviously have new boatloads of people arriving during calmer times. You could have a real estate developer who comes and decides this is great oceanfront property. You could have somebody wants to build a golf course, what have you. You know, that worked very well for Yellowstone.

Andy Greenwald

The first part of what you were saying reminded me of the second season of youf Friends and Neighbors, where James Marsden shows up and moves in.

Chris Ryan

Well, this is the thing is that I think I have sometimes a little bit of a. I was talking yesterday with a couple people about Breaking Bad and I was like. There was really like at least three different shows. You know, it's like the.

Andy Greenwald

At the same time or over the course of the.

Chris Ryan

Over the course of this series where it starts out and it's this black comedy about a guy who's got the worst news of his life and decides to become a master criminal. Then there is a fish out of water show of like, this guy who's never been part of a criminal underworld slowly becoming more and more more adept at it. And then there is the crime epic that is basically on, like, Godfather level. That concludes the show. I'll be curious to see whether Widow's Bay in three years, we look back and remember, and we were like, remember first version of Widow's Bay. That was like monster of the week.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah.

Chris Ryan

And now it's. But now it's about this or that or the other thing.

Andy Greenwald

I think that what's promising. I mean, there's a lot of things that are promising. One is. And you guys will hear this in the interview. I don't think. I think Katie wants to keep making the show, obviously, but I don't think she feels any great burden to, like, stretch this out. You know, that she has a story to tell and will have as much fun as possible doing it. But it won't necessarily move through eras in that way. I think the other thing is that there's a lot of room for it to be about a community, not just one man. And even if it is, even if the focus ultimately does land on Matthew Rhys character on Tom Loftus. It is about his relationship with his son. His son who is now the inheritor of a great and ancient satanic evil living underneath the island.

Chris Ryan

Did you get the impression that he knew that at the end of the episode, in the final shot?

Andy Greenwald

I don't get. It's a good question. I didn't get the impression that he knew, but I did get the impression that he was now suddenly more than aware of.

Chris Ryan

He wasn't like, when can we go to the Red Sox?

Andy Greenwald

There's something here that I have now witnessed that I am now connected to, even though I don't understand that it is a part of. I'm so excited about this show. It is such a joy. It was such a gift, and it is such. It's such a. And we talk about this in our interview, but the specificity of it, you know, that to be able not just to have a exciting new show to look forward to when it returns in a year or year and a half, but this show and this place with these actors and whatever is lurking around the corner, be it a monster of the week or a character actor that Allison Jones has dug out of the most perfect obscurity and brought back in front of us.

Chris Ryan

I was talking with Sean yesterday about the.

Andy Greenwald

Your Spider man friend.

Chris Ryan

No, it was about his addition of projections that just went up today. And we were talking a little bit about where movies are at and what are some of the new rules of movie making and moviegoing in the movie industry. And I definitely think I have a little bit of. I'm always thinking about the relationship between television and movies. Those things can be very fluid. But like right now, I obviously think that between Obsession and Backroom Spider Man Odyssey, the way people are talking about the movies, the way people are going to films, that there's a centrality of it in the culture.

Andy Greenwald

Disclosure Day. Big hit.

Chris Ryan

Yeah, Disclosure Day. Big hit. But also very divisive in a way that I've really enjoyed some of the conversations I've overheard about it, and I think it's led me to wonder about what TV can be and what TV should be in that world, in that reality. I think you and I have lived through some really plum days of even if only X amount of million people are watching Succession, it feels like all of them want to talk about succession all the time. And as TV has tried to become bigger and bigger and bigger and consume more and more and more of our time, I wonder sometimes whether we've lost certain just known knowns of how to make it and what people like about it. And hearing Katie and Hiro talk about it where it was like, it wasn't like what we were trying to do was make Hereditary meets this or, you know, like this very kind of like almost antiseptic or scientific way of like, it's a pitch. It was like, no, this script was something that she had lived with for a really long time. She'd obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this world. And then she and Hiro were like, let's make a place that people want to come back to for two and a half months. That's like, that's all you gotta do. And it's way easier said than done. But if you want to know, like, what TV should be or what TV can be, it's not necessarily like, what do we not get out of Presumed Innocence the first time. It's like, let's make a fucking world that people want to hang out in for three months.

Andy Greenwald

Which is really hard.

Chris Ryan

Yeah.

Andy Greenwald

But you have to give people creative space and oxygen to give them a chance to accomplish that. And it's such an important point that you're making and it's such a necessary point at this moment, when the companies who own all of the purse strings are algorithmically inclined, whether because they are essentially tech companies who have taken on this other piece of business to monetize and exploit, or because even the traditional studios that remain are now tethered to this streaming model where they have almost too much data to pour over as if it contains some sort of clue, like goose entrails in the year 1200 BC. That's not how stuff happens in film and in TV. Good stuff never comes from trying to predict the future or predict the weather. But I also have to take a moment. I think people who listen to the interview will hear this as well. To call myself out on it, because I think that as I did a moment ago with the planning for Ruth, I take comfort in the same way I like a really accurate weather forecast in the idea that, well, because Katie is so good at what she does and had such a vision and Hero is such a genius at making high, high level television that they walked into every meeting confident and walked out confident and everyone understood because they always knew what they were doing. No writer and I would imagine, well, some directors think they always know what they're doing, but very few creative people have that kind of confidence day to day. But more importantly, that kind of confidence is kind of antiseptic and anti art because it disallows other people's ability to contribute. So the writers that Katie assembled saying, well, actually, I think as she says, Bashir should come in and kill or shoot Ruth. And what's that gonna do for our story? Or Hiro talks about like the set deck team and what they did in Ruth's house, which is so memorable even in its one episode that it appears in like, you have to have that uncertainty. What we take as a confident, authorial, artistic voice is often the product of that weird alchemy of complete anxiety and terror and creative inspiration when you need it most.

Chris Ryan

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a good place for us to segue into our interview with Katie Dippold, the creator of Widow's Bay, and Hiro Mirai, who directed four of the episodes for the first season. Andy and I will be back on Monday to talk about House of the Dragon and Star City and whatever else happens over the weekend. Hope everybody enjoys USMNT soccer ruse tomorrow. Me and Adam Friedland will be going on after the game.

Andy Greenwald

Oh, you're gonna go on live. You're gonna react.

Chris Ryan

I don't know if we're gonna go live live.

Andy Greenwald

But, you know, how is your Australian accent? That is a hard one to do. Do you think you can do.

Chris Ryan

You know what? I don't even know if it's gonna come up, honestly.

Andy Greenwald

Oh, cause you think we won't even be talking about the Socceroos? Don't provoke that.

Chris Ryan

No, no, no, no. I did not mean it that way. I just mean like, you know, what Adam and I are doing kind of transcends exists in a world beyond impersonation.

Andy Greenwald

Look at me trying.

Chris Ryan

Thanks to Kaia and Kai for producing. We will be back on Monday, everybody. Have a great weekend.

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Chris Ryan

Katie and Hiro, thank you so much for joining us on the watch. We've loved the first season of Widow's Bay. Obviously, as we've talked about it incessantly and we can't wait to talk to you about making it. And what's the future for this year? Andy, I think you were gonna lead us off.

Andy Greenwald

I am. But I also wanna say that I'm especially excited that we're getting you Katie here with the energy of having just come from the Jersey Shore and drinking what might be your first coffee in years.

Katie Dippold

It is. It's my first coffee in a very long time and we're gonna see how it goes.

Andy Greenwald

I think it's gonna be great.

Katie Dippold

So how I sound right now is gonna be very different in 30 minutes.

Andy Greenwald

I feel like we should just let you Cook for a second, marinate, and then. Okay, so we have many questions about the brilliant finale and the brilliant first season, but I feel like we need from you, Katie, the definitive origin story of this script, because there are. I think you've talked about it a little bit, but the sense was that this was generated years ago. Maybe even this was a script in some form that got you hired on Parks and Rec. Is that true? Can you confirm or deny?

Katie Dippold

Okay, so, Yes, I was 28, and I wrote it as a sample for Parks and Recreation, but it was different then. It was much more comedic, much more joke, joke, joke. And I think it gave Mike Schur an idea of my humor, so it got me that job. But it was quite different than what you see now.

Andy Greenwald

I think that for many of us, the scariest thing imaginable isn't necessarily a Sea Hag. It's looking at creative writing we did over a decade ago. So can you just talk a little bit about why you continued to return to this idea and how did your professional experiences since the Parks and Rec job shape what it became?

Katie Dippold

That's actually a great point, because I don't like looking back at old stuff either. It's actually a horrible experience. I don't even like looking back at stuff that's been made. I have a hard time. You know what I mean? Yeah, but. But I just kept tooling away at this. So it's like something that never fully went away. Cause I was always thinking about it, and I don't know, it was always

Chris Ryan

a draft in progress, kind of.

Katie Dippold

Exactly. It was my version. It was like my version of a novel.

Chris Ryan

Gotcha.

Katie Dippold

You know, I had one of Those, too.

Chris Ryan

Age 41.

Katie Dippold

So I would just always just bring notebooks. And especially when I was traveling east, I would just brainstorm what this place could be like and what kind of things could happen there and the different characters and just kept at it forever. I just never wanted to stop thinking about it.

Chris Ryan

Had you thought about it in terms. In, like, the visual terms, with the rich way it was realized in this Apple TV version of the show? Had you started to think about it visually before you started talking to Hero about it? Had there been, like, was there a look for the show in your mind when you were even in those early days of creativity with it?

Katie Dippold

So, okay, the very first version, there was a moment in time after a couple years at Parks, where I started shopping it around. And, well, there was going to be an offer, but I put a pin in it because I just had this very bad feeling it was not the right time that I had not thought about it enough or what it would really feel like and what it would look like and what this world was gonna be like. And so that's when I kept working on it. And I remember watching Atlanta, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. And I love just that cinematic half hour television. It's so special and all the different swings they would take. And it was so rich and so much texture to it. And so as I kept working on it, I always thought Hero was the dream director for it. I never thought in a billion years I would get him to do it. It's also still hilarious to me. He said yes, because it just seems like a crazy move, honestly. But so it was very inspiring to me. And TV just started changing. And so I wanted this to feel like a place that you would want to go to and that would bring a certain kind of look. And I wanted it to feel grounded. And so I didn't know exactly what he was going to do. You know, he's a brilliant director that makes all sorts of surprising choices. But we talked a great deal about how we wanted it to feel.

Hiro Mirai

I think one of the first things you said was like, you know, obviously it's got the joke density and the world bending, all that stuff, but you just like, I just want to be in this place drinking a coffee in a diner. And the feeling of being there was so specific and you just knew what you wanted there. And I think in a way, for a TV show, how it feels to be in that world is kind of the most important part. It can be funny, but if it's not a place you want to return to, then you got nothing.

Chris Ryan

Is there a magic trick to doing that? Is there a thing that you've done maybe over the course of a couple of years that you feel like there's a question I want to answer or there's like a something I want to execute. Whether it's something about the depth of production design and set dressing, or, you know, whether it's location scouting. But I'm always curious about, like, what's the thing that's repeatable?

Hiro Mirai

I think it just accumulates. I mean, I think big part of shooting in Massachusetts was that there's just the quality to that part of the country that we just couldn't get anywhere else. Like trying to fake it in Canada felt bad and, you know, and then. And then I think the other part is just character dynamics and like what it feels like to sit in a room with These characters just felt like the leading thing for the show. And that part, I always felt like you had a really distinct idea of how it should feel.

Katie Dippold

I feel like one thing I always. There's one joke in the pilot that we talked about a lot because I think Hiro always liked it, but it was also grappling with how does that fit in this world, which is the calendar joke and the original. Yes, because we really thought long and hard about all these little choices. And so the calendar joke originally was a wolf. He's flipping through and he sees wolf, wolf, wolf. And then it shows a sexy fireman with his shirt off. And he looks at the top and it says wolves and firemen. So that calendar was specifically made to be wolves and fireman, which I actually think is a funnier, broader joke. It's a bigger joke. And then. So I think you liked the swing. But we think. But like, what is. How does that fit in this scene? Like where this man is coming in and he has, you know, he's determined to do this thing and he's dealing with Patricia and he's doing all these things. But so then I changed it to just a random flipped over truck. That's not explained why that's in the calendar. So it became a different kind of joke, but I think it felt better to us.

Hiro Mirai

And then my reaction was like,

Andy Greenwald

it's so interesting because, Hira, your point is so well, about how the intimate nature of TV means we want to spend time there as audience members, but specifically with a project like this, the characters also have to get coffee there and have to live there in between the action. And so much of this project, I would imagine, has been. Was it like a relay race of communicating tone? Until you have the proof of concept and you've shot the pilot, no one can truly understand what it is. Right. So could you talk us through a little bit of those conversations before we get into the more specifics of the show? Like, Katie, we heard about you talking to Hero. And then once you two are together, what do you say to the production designer? What do you say to the executives at Apple? What do you say to Matthew Rhys when he comes in to meet with you? How do you communicate what at that moment only exists in your burgeoning shared consciousness to get them to buy in?

Katie Dippold

You just talk. You have a very smart way of talking to the actors about treating it like a drama, you know?

Hiro Mirai

Yeah, I think. I mean, it's all kind of a guess, to be totally honest. Right. Because we're just kind of Building the plane as we're flying it, you know, and so I think there's a little bit of pretending like, you know, what it is. You know, some people listen to you. Yeah. But I think the first thing we talked about is like, you know, when I read the pilot, it was like, so funny. And it was clear that it was a world that Katie's been thinking about for a really long time, you know, But I was just like, I wasn't quite sure how to kind of tackle it. And Katie was the one who was just like, I just want it to feel like a real place, you know? So, like, the authenticity and reality of these characters, as absurd as some of them are, was the most important thing.

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Hiro Mirai

And so that made me go, okay, then let's just play it real.

Sponsor Voice

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Hiro Mirai

And so, you know, obviously there's things that are heightened or, like, anachronistic or a little strange, but, like, I think building the internal logic and reality of this world became the most important thing, I think.

Katie Dippold

Yeah. Which is also hard because when you're grounded, because we wanted it to be grounded. So when you do have tension or something terrifying happen, you can't. You'll lose everything if you do a joke where someone's not taking it seriously. Like, I was always wanting to avoid something terrifying happening and a character being, well, that happened. But it's like you have to spend every moment like, oh, no, what would they do? Like, how would they react to this? And it's also hard for the actors because I don't know what they're drawing on from life, you know, I hope not much. So it was. Honestly, it was a tricky thing. Cause I also think. And then in terms of the executives, it's definitely a lot of projecting confidence, But I do think we were very confident about the feeling we wanted. It was just how to get there. Constant question, like, just constantly reflection and does this feel good? Does this feel bad? And just doing that the entire time I do.

Chris Ryan

You can feel the fact that especially in those early episodes when there's still some, like, town hall office business going on, that none of the people in that. In those scenes think they're in, like, a sitcom. Like, they're not. Like, this is my bit that I always do when I come into the office. Like, it's all the comedy is very much like a product of day to day interaction over, like, tasks that they have to solve. So you guys were telling the actors that pretend you're in a drama, but there is comic things happening, obviously. Like, what was the sort of, like, the way that you led that ensemble.

Hiro Mirai

Some of it is just casting. Like, you know, some.

Andy Greenwald

Let's start casting.

Hiro Mirai

Yeah. Like, the people we got for. It's just like the Avengers of character actors. Like, you know, these guys know how to play the absurd. Seriously. Like, that's kind of their whole thing. And we were fortunate that a lot of the people also have really good comedic timing, you know, and so even when they're playing it real, they know how to kind of like, dodge and weave around a punchline or play it up or play it down. And so, yeah, it was just kind of like getting them all in the pen together and seeing what happens a little bit.

Katie Dippold

And I just saw an article of Stephen in the Rolling Stone where he's talking about how with comedy, you always play it straight. And I think. And that's what's so funny about him. But I think, to give him more credit, he's also, on top of being a great actor playing it straight, he's also one of the funniest people in the entire world. You know what I mean? He's a comedic genius. So, like, having people who are great actors that will play it straight, they'll never try to sell it for a joke. They're not gonna be hammy. But they are also all very naturally funny people.

Andy Greenwald

I mean, I was gonna ask if the casting wish list for Wicked began with Steven and ended with ut.

Hiro Mirai

Like,

Andy Greenwald

could you ever have imagined anyone else in this part, or did he just take it over and run with it?

Katie Dippold

God. I mean, he's like, the best person at towing both lines. Like, he's. He just. He's so perfect for it. To be honest, I didn't have anyone, any one actor in mind for any of the parts, but when he said he was willing to do it, it was like, that is wonderful news.

Chris Ryan

I know Colin Farrell was up for it, but he wanted to do the Penguin Seed, so he was like, do I to wear prosthetics?

Andy Greenwald

One thing I think you guys have said you've heard us talk about is, like, some of the Parks and Rec DNA that may have existed in the show. And I always think about the way that Mike Schur over Parks and Rec and in Good Place, really brought some of the propulsive, contemporary serialized storytelling into the half hour and comedic space. And you can actually say with a straight face that you can see that he is a big fan of the Wire when you watch Parks and Rec, even though I would say, tonally, they're slightly different. Katie, can you talk about how you look and then how you applied it here. Because I think that one of the genius things about this season is that you are telling a big story in a cinematic way, but you paced it so beautifully so that you can enjoy the fun, you can enjoy it episodically. Along the way. There were two moments that really stuck out to me. The first is the pilot. Oh, my God, we are going to be in hell for 10 episodes. And then the tourists come and you kind of take a breath and you exhale. And then the other one was just the decision to split 103 and 104 into almost individual perspective episodes that allowed you to tell story happening concurrently that didn't SAP from the overall momentum. Like, this is like high level breaking, room breaking stuff. But I just thought it was so impressive.

Katie Dippold

Oh, that's very nice to hear. Some of those decisions were having not done it before and not realizing how hard it would be. So, like, for example, we had already broken episode three with the Hag and we. And then a writer had pitched that Patricia finds this help book. And we started going on about, you know, our emotional fears of rejection and status. And so what if she tries to throw this party? And then somehow in the room, what if these are happening on the same day? Now, why we decided to add that complicated layer to it, I don't know. But it seemed fun at the time. But it was.

Andy Greenwald

Gilligan says that's how he plots to. And he just lives in regret.

Katie Dippold

Yes, yes.

Andy Greenwald

But it's a good exercise.

Katie Dippold

But for the parts of it, you know, it was such a great room there. And I always. The things I love the most about this show or something that I love, a good throwaway joke that can come back later in a more meaningful way. And in this show that can come back in a really terrifying way. You know, not even as a joke. I also loved the World building in Parks and Rec. So all those are just in my. And so that was. It was fun to take what I learned there and use it, whether it was for comedy or just lore. Intention.

Chris Ryan

Yeah, I was going to ask. I'm glad you mentioned lore, because that's. It's kind of become a catch term recently. I mean, I know that, like, I've had lots of conversations with people about backrooms and obsession regarding, like, whether or not, like, you know, are these stories that can be solved essentially, and that, like, you're going through these puzzle pieces. And I was curious about, like, how it feels to like, organically write something that also has a clear undergirding of, like, this is the actual history of the island. This is. I know where this is going in a season or two or whatever the case may be, versus also keeping it lively and playful and allowing, you know, moments where someone can be like, what if Patricia found a self help book? I guess you can kind of divide those things into two spaces. Like, there's the everyday life stuff that happens, and then there is the. Well, these are the planks of Widow's Bay's history that we know we may reference at some point and the monsters that are out there. But how much did you guys talk about, you know, what has happened on this island and what is coming for this island?

Katie Dippold

I'd say the first four weeks we spent time thinking about both things. We would think about what would be fun to do. Like, what would be a fun episode. Like, him going to an inn to prove it's not haunted. Seemed like a fun thing to do. But then also we had. We equally spent time thinking about the history of the island, and we really tried to come up with a history that felt very real, so. Cause I think when the absurd moments pop out, it's even funnier. More, a lot of the show is, wait, what? Yeah, you know, which I think is also what hero is so good at, where it's never too much in your face or too. It's just sort of like you can blink and miss it, you know, and you just sort of catch those moments. So we talked about both, and then it was just sort of an organic process of, okay, what feels right now like, oh, I just want this to feel like a Monster of the Week episode. I just want this to be fun. And then like, okay, now we have to get a little bit more into the store and get a little emotional here. I say that like, I'm mad at it, so. And it's interesting, like, seeing the reactions, because we are trying to do a couple different things. And I've seen people that have loved the Monster of the Week episodes. And then when it gets into more lore, they're like, no.

Andy Greenwald

The X Files dilemma.

Chris Ryan

Well, I think we all kind of like, long for. I want 20 episodes of just like, what am I getting this week? Kind of.

Katie Dippold

Yes.

Chris Ryan

And I think it's more of, like a nostalgia for a kind of TV that you feel for three weeks when you're watching Widow's Bay, and then you're like, okay, cool, now we have to figure out whether or not Ruth is Evan's grandmother or whatever.

Katie Dippold

Yeah, I really was hoping to get all of it if possible. Because I really wanted. I'm a lunatic. So I'll go to sleep watching a horror movie. Like I will just put on like, you know, the Exorcist or something and fall asleep happily. But I like, I'm also a very anxious comedy writer. But I feel like I wanted it to feel like someone can go to bed and be like, oh, I want to put on the in episode. So there's enough standalone so you can just put something on and enjoy it for itself, you know. But still, I know myself. I only, I want to watch a show that's more serialized, that there's a bigger story and that. Or answering questions. So that was why we tried to do both.

Hiro Mirai

Yeah, there's something kind of like old TV about the way we built it that I think is really refreshing.

Katie Dippold

Yeah.

Hiro Mirai

One thing I wanted to say as a side anecdote is whenever I would go into Katie's production office when we were shooting, she would very seriously typing on her computer and then on the TV on the wall, there would be, I guess like a YouTube screensaver kind of thing of like a silhouette of a man standing in the woods with like spooky wind sounds. And I'm just like, what's happening in here?

Katie Dippold

That's like one of the easier ones. That's one of the later ones. There's one that's Halloween. There's just these videos, background videos for,

Chris Ryan

you know, I'm very familiar.

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Katie Dippold

I'm trying to get them to make one for the show. But there's one that it's just a half in Haddonfield. But every now and then Michael Myers comes by just like carrying this dead body. And it's so upsetting when it happens. So sometimes someone would come in my office and I'm like, oh, I hope he doesn't come by because this would be an inappropriate thing to happen for this person.

Chris Ryan

Just trying to do a job watching Halloween vibes, videos that are three hours long.

Katie Dippold

Let's try to get this conversation under three minutes before I know he shows up.

Andy Greenwald

I do want to delve into the psychological root of this, but I also want the coffee to peak so I can ask her a question while that

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Andy Greenwald

The way you guys were just talking about like old fashioned TV comfort and new, new fashion TV ambition. I did want to talk about on the directorial side, like Hiro, you know that like there is a. There's been a move towards the auteur theory where like a director will direct a series like it is a movie. The thing that you guys pulled off this season that I was incredibly blown away by was four directors directed the season. There is no massive tonal shift or drop off in quality between any of them. People brought their own sensibilities and points of view and quirks, no doubt. But that is such a veteran move. We used to watch television and multiple people would direct it, but it would still feel like it was coming from a collective voice. How did you handle that? How did you manage to pull that off?

Hiro Mirai

I think there's two parts to that. I think part of it is just in the writing. You know what I mean? I think because I assume because so much of it lived it in your head for so long, there's like, I've never read a pilot and been like, oh, I know this is like. I know this whole world. You know, a lot of times you read a pilot and you go, oh, they just wrote this hoping that somebody will tell them to go write a second one or a third one. This one just felt like a fully fleshed kind of world. And so, you know, I think what. What's magical about that is that there's already boundaries, there's already kind of things to play with. And so even if you got someone who didn't direct the last block to come in, they're still kind of playing with pieces that are speaking to each other. And it has its own sort of rules that are a little more stable. Then you can't direct it off the rail, I don't think. I've been working with the same sort of DP and edit crew for a really long time. All the guys who did Atlanta came back for this.

Andy Greenwald

Christian Springer.

Hiro Mirai

Yeah, Christian. And our secondary dp, Cody. Jake was our key gaffer when we first started. And so I think there's like, an understanding and like a mutual language. And obviously the directors come in and put their own vision to it. But there's also kind of this, like, you know, like a mutual understanding of taste among all the crew. And so I think that keeps it a little consistent.

Andy Greenwald

One of the directors is Andrew DeYoung, who did friendship last year, which is one of my favorite movies. And there are elements that you could see, like the work that he does with Tim Robinson, which is incredibly funny and also kind of horrific at times. It's just. It's almost like there's a fader and you could go in either direction. Katie, what is this connection that I have? To be honest with you, I had never personally pursued or experienced between the hysterics of comedy and the hysteria of horror.

Katie Dippold

I'm a weird one to ask because I find both very delightful. Like, I'm not. You know what I mean?

Andy Greenwald

You're the only one to ask.

Katie Dippold

Don't ask me. I just think that I've always found horror very fun. I mean, like. Like. I mean, I love Hereditary. I wouldn't say that was a fun time. I felt like. I just. I read the Wikipedia, but, I mean, I love that movie. It's masterful. But I really. It's just anticipation and, you know, building tension and then payoff. I find it to be very similar. Like, I. You know, in the movies, when I love when something scary happens and people scream, someone screams, and then everyone collectively laughs, there's a similar release that taps into. As an anxious person, it's being able to watch the other shoe drop, you know? But, yeah, Andy, I do think I love when people of backgrounds in comedy do horror. It's like the Jordan Peele thing or Zach Kreger. I think there's a reason it can work really well. And Andy's so funny. He's so lovely. I remember on set, I remember I went up to him with a note, and I was just like, can you just. I said, just so I can sleep at night. Do you think you could do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And he was like, just so you sleep at night. You say that with every note. I didn't realize how often I've been using that. Just so I can sleep at night.

Andy Greenwald

Maybe there's a deeper issue.

Katie Dippold

I was like, okay.

Chris Ryan

I think that your baggage episode is a really good example, though, where it's made, obviously, from such a loving place of scenarios like that of slasher and, you know, like, Halloween and Friday the 13th. And it's really funny, but it's never, like, a satire of it. It's kind of. It's like right on this line of like, no, she's running in ugg boots. And, you know, this is an apparition slash. Like, you know, undead, you know, demon following her. But it never feels like you're, like, doing Scary Movie or something like that, or you're, like, lampooning the fact that, like, oh, isn't it funny that sometimes these things walk, but they always catch up to the victim? And I was curious whether or not you guys spent much time talking about horror movie touchstones in terms of things that you wanted to reference, or whether it was kind of putting aside all of those references and trying to live this stuff in a much more organic way.

Katie Dippold

I mean, I think Andy just got it like, you know, he knew we all love Halloween and all those slash movies, but especially Halloween. And so I think he just understood it. And so we would talk more about the character and we had a conversation about tone and, you know, not wanting to scare, to feel silly, but that I would say your baggage or old baggage. I should know the names of the episodes of the show. I don't either, but I feel like 8 would be the closest to kind of pushing it, like just in script, like it was. I usually am like really strict about like this scary, can never feel silly. And that one was toeing the line a little more, you know, that I would usually like. But it just felt like we weren't going to redo the genre. That's been done. We weren't gonna come up with this brand new horror element to that franchise. So we might as well have fun of it. And the fun is this 40 year old woman running around the neighborhood trying to get people to see that this boogeyman is stalking her.

Andy Greenwald

I want to ask about Matthew Rhys as a collaborator. He is, as a former guest on this podcast, we can attest that he is one of the most delightful people we've ever met in person and is like a true Swiss army knife of abilities because he can be the funniest person and he can be the most emotionally vulnerable actor alive. Going through the season with him writing and directing, what was the collaboration like in terms of keeping him anchored to where Tom needed as both the protagonist, as both in many ways, like the audience surrogate of like, I don't think something bad is happening here. What did he need to stay grounded in a character that needed to play so many different notes throughout the course of the season?

Katie Dippold

I mean, I don't think he needed a lot.

Hiro Mirai

Honestly, he's just very good. He's just very good at acting. He's a really good actor.

Katie Dippold

Yeah. Honestly, like, I feel like he. He had a couple of questions, you know, when's lunch?

Andy Greenwald

Could I ride a horse this season?

Katie Dippold

Yeah, I feel like there was some discussion on his backstory and there was like a couple of like logic things he asked that. I was like, God damn it, he's right. And then fixed, you know, but other than that, I mean, he really is just a very good actor.

Hiro Mirai

He's just very good. And I think he's also just a very naturally funny person and maybe he hasn't had a chance to play with that as much. And so he was excited at the prospect.

Katie Dippold

Yeah.

Hiro Mirai

And I think when we first started talking, we all kind of, you know, we zoomed together. And I only known him as, you know, Perry Mason and the Americans. So I was expecting, like, a very deadly serious, somber man. And he was just a joy, you know, as you met. And I think we just all kind of agreed that, like, okay, the way to approach this is going to be find the real emotional kind of truth of it all, and then all the comedy and horror stuff can sit on top of it. And after that, he was just like, okay, I understand. And we just kind of got through a whole season of just putting him through all these crazy scenarios and him finding the reality inside of it.

Katie Dippold

That was like the cast was like the easiest part. Do you know what I mean? It was really not a lot of questions. They would just show up and. And do incredible work. I mean, I'm sure you're giving direction.

Hiro Mirai

Am I really?

Katie Dippold

But in terms of. I don't know, I just. There wasn't a lot of. I don't know, it was. That could have made this very hard. It was one of the easier parts. They were all delightful and just fantastic.

Hiro Mirai

I do remember when we shot the finale where he had 15 pages of just the most crazy, dramatic scenes with Ruth at the. He pulled me aside and was like, I signed up for a comedy and this is the most dramatic acting I've ever done.

Chris Ryan

Well, that's a good way to get into the finale and to the sort of last run of episodes, because Andy was asking you guys about breaking story and about playing by sitcom rules versus maybe playing by more newfound prestige TV rules. But I thought it was amazing how much you gave in the finale in terms of, here's where this could go, here's what else we've got the film strip that Jeff Hiller's watching and obviously whatever is in that basement in that dungeon. Can you talk to me a little bit about where you wanted to end up in terms of, I want to give this season a satisfying conclusion versus I want to save stuff for future story that we're going to be telling.

Katie Dippold

I'm a big fan of just giving as much as possible and then deciding what the next season is. I mean. I mean, just going as long as you have. I'm not trying to drag this out for, you know, 20 years. I mean. Cause I think there's more you could do in this world that is beyond the story. But anyways, I guess I just wanted to give as much as possible. But I knew there was gonna be probably a season two. I mean, I didn't know it. We didn't know it till recently.

Andy Greenwald

And congratulations.

Katie Dippold

Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't know. I knew going into the writer's room, the final dilemma that Loftus was going to have presented to him. And I knew he was gonna find out about his son and how exactly that was gonna play out. That was discussed a lot in the room. And it was really fun. Cause I didn't know. It was interesting. I had people pegged wrong. Like some writers that were like, oh, I would grab the gun and drive to her house and shoot her in the back of the head. And some people were like, nope, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I was completely wrong on who would. So it was a really fun time debating that. And so, yeah, it was just a lot of arguments. And then someone else had pitched the Bashir move. And so once we knew that was gonna happen, then we started working backwards to try to make sure you can buy that as much as possible, that a man would be pushed to the brink like that.

Andy Greenwald

And who in the writer's room pushed for the lion, but he got bit by an animal and became that animal.

Katie Dippold

Oh, God, I wish I could remember.

Andy Greenwald

I think we should throw a parade for that for a second.

Katie Dippold

I know this is my.

Andy Greenwald

I paused and rewound four or five times. I called my daughter in from the other room, and I was like, this is everything to me. This is so perfect.

Chris Ryan

But do they deliver, like, Chekhov's jokes or Chekhov's throwaways where you're like, I guess now we have to have a guy who got bit by an animal and became that animal?

Katie Dippold

I mean, some of these. Some of these, like, you could absolutely do an ep. I like that some of these things are meant to be thrown away and never revisited. And then some that you could be like, oh, no, there could be a whole episode about that, you know? So I don't know. That's exciting to me.

Andy Greenwald

Speaking about old school television, the thing that we have been delighted to observe and hear about and read in the news is that, like, it does sound like, for as much as we have any access to these opaque streaming metrics, that your show is a phenomenon in the sense that apparently it is just growing week to week to week, and the audience is finding it in a way that is exciting as a fan of the medium. Like, that's something that people used to happen and now really only happens in the Bear and the Pit and maybe Widow's Bay. What has the. This 10 week journey been like for you guys of having this weird thing that. Especially for you, Katie, this weird thing that has lived in your head for so long and suddenly sharing it and finding that maybe other people also like weird things living in their heads.

Katie Dippold

Yeah, it's really wild, you know, because I remembered just a couple months ago, I would, like, look online to see if there's any chatter about it and be absolutely nothing. Just absolutely nothing. I'm like, well, okay. It's crazy to work so hard on something for so long, and then you have to be okay with no one seeing it or no one liking it. Like, if you're doing it just to try to make something that people absolutely like, that's, I think, how you end up with something more formulaic or expected. So I really had no idea. Even though I knew I was really proud of the work. I thought everyone just did such incredible jobs on this show. Like, it's just really like, I'm always blown away by what everyone brought, whether it's the directing or the cast or props or the vfx the score, but you just don't know. And I was. I honestly, up until the night before reviews started coming out, I'm like, well, let's see what this is gonna feel like. It's gonna feel real bad. You just don't know.

Andy Greenwald

You just don't know whose cosign meant the most to you. Cause I think we. We have, like, Stephen King was tweeting about it. You got the rare Tim Cook tweet recently, which I didn't know he knew he had a television studio, so that was very exciting.

Chris Ryan

Guillermo del Toro.

Andy Greenwald

Guillermo del Toro.

Katie Dippold

The Guillermo del Toro one was really thrilling because From a horror director, you know what I mean? Cause I have been in comedy for a long time, so a horror director, to say that about the horror in

Hiro Mirai

the show and specifically call out the horror aspect, that was really exciting.

Katie Dippold

That was shocking. But not. I mean, that's. But it was very. I was delighted and surprised, I will

Hiro Mirai

say, like, to, you know, speak on Katie. Like, I think as we were making it, like, every sort of craft person or department had kind of coming in. I could tell that they were invested in the world of the show. That is, like, pretty rare, you know, And I think it just speaks to the world that Katy initially sort of crafted. Like, this is. You know, it's pretty rare. Like, the set deck, people were like. They had lists of what every worker at the town hall would have in their desk.

Chris Ryan

You can tell.

Hiro Mirai

You know what I mean? Like, it was like, the specificity and the dressing at Ruth's house was, like. It was, like, very personal to the set decks. Like, it was like they were pulling from their own relationships to their moms and aunts. And then, you know, just from that

Chris Ryan

era at that point killed me. Like, I can't read that. I can't read that.

Hiro Mirai

And so I guess all that is to say, who knows how shows hit in the world, but I could tell that people really liked investing themselves into that world.

Andy Greenwald

Why do you think you've now been a part of two shows that have done this so successfully? You've done also other brilliant work. I'm not trying to shit on Patrick Somerville, for example, but in case it's in this Furious. I know I kind of want that. No, but specifically in the case of Atlanta and with Widow's Bay, I just feel the evidence of something was the best advice I ever got, which is that a pilot script is a wonderful thing that opens a door, and then you have to unlock it and let everyone else come into it and bring their enthusiasm. And that's. That's when things can elevate, when everybody is rowing in the same direction with that same spirit that brought you to your laptop, however many years ago it was.

Hiro Mirai

Yeah.

Andy Greenwald

Hiro, having worked with two creators who have been able to communicate that what is the secret sauce?

Hiro Mirai

I mean, it's sort of a crapshoot a little bit, but, you know, I think it is. It does feel sometimes like a chemistry test. You know what I mean? Like, you're kind of like. I think good ideas have its own sort of, like, gravitational pull, and I think people are drawn to it and they want to make something inside of it.

Andy Greenwald

Yeah.

Hiro Mirai

And so, like, I think obviously you have to walk in with a good idea, but then if you let the right people in the room, I think a TV show starts to kind of take on its own life, you know, And I think it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. And I think I've watched that with Atlanta. I watched that with this, and I think it's. I don't know, it's magical every time. You know what I mean? Like, you watch an actor that you cast sort of like, oh, you're that person now. Like, you're not. You know what I mean? You were someone on the page, and now you're just this sort of full person that I like watching. And so that was a. You know, that was an experience of making this show in a lot of

Chris Ryan

ways, does the passion people have obviously, you know, expressed for the show make not writing season two more difficult. But, like, do you think about things like, oh, I want to expand this and widen the palette of characters? Cause one of my favorite parts about this season is there's this fivesome. 6. Some of people who understand what's happening, and then everybody else is kind of like, well, am I gonna have any vacancies at my inn? Or how are we gonna make it through the summer season? Do you think that the interest in the show has changed the way you're approaching it creatively at all?

Katie Dippold

Not really. I mean, it's helpful to know that I'm happy to know that people like the monster of the week episodes. And so, you know, I would love to keep that feel alive, even though we're gonna keep going deeper into the lore and exploring different character stories. But I'm basically gonna go back to the Jersey shore next week, and I'm just gonna lock myself up in this little condo and I'm gonna go to the. I found a new haunted house on another boardwalk.

Chris Ryan

Nice.

Hiro Mirai

Amazing.

Katie Dippold

I'm gonna get soft serve ice cream. Every day I will come back a different person.

Andy Greenwald

Any airbrush teas?

Katie Dippold

Yes. And then go into the writer's room. And this is like the part that's fun, that, you know, you can just imagine anything. And then it's. And then it's hard. And then it's very hard.

Andy Greenwald

I noted with interest that Damon Lindelof is a huge fan. And if you ever need advice about creating a show that has a mysterious island full of questions that becomes very, very popular very, very quickly, you could probably reach out to him. There is some precedent there.

Katie Dippold

He has offered that. Which was very nice, actually. Which is very nice.

Andy Greenwald

He could do an instructional video and send it to you on reels. Last thing since I have you, Katie, I feel like we were just talking about how wonderful two of the great pillars of modern television are Atlanta and now Widow's Bay, in a different medium. Katie, by my estimation, there have only ever been two good tweets. One is. Was the grink there?

Katie Dippold

Oh, I love that one. Yeah, that's so great.

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One.

Andy Greenwald

The other one was your Babadook Halloween party tweet. It is actually kind of amazing to watch people's face light up when I try to explain. Like, in the early days of, like, you have to watch Widow's Bay. And I'm naming things associated with it. And I say, no, no, it's the. It's the woman who did the Babadook. And then they're like, oh, yeah, that

Chris Ryan

might actually be, like, great viral marketing.

Andy Greenwald

It's kind of incredible.

Chris Ryan

Could.

Andy Greenwald

Could you. I, I. I don't want to send you even further back into the past, but could you just tell us a little bit about the. The life and afterlife of that tweet?

Katie Dippold

You mean, like, how it came to be, How I came to be sitting there?

Andy Greenwald

Or honestly, we could just close our laptops and just let the cameras run for an hour. Whatever you'd like to share.

Katie Dippold

Oh, okay. Halloween I take very seriously.

Andy Greenwald

Clearly.

Katie Dippold

I think that's obvious. And so I wanted to be the Babadook, as one would.

Chris Ryan

Sure.

Katie Dippold

I went to a Salvation army and got the coffee and the hat. I really lucked. I struck out. I mean, what's the opposite of struck out?

Andy Greenwald

Home run.

Katie Dippold

Home run. Home run.

Chris Ryan

Knocked it out of the park.

Katie Dippold

Knocked it out of the park. Knocked out the park. Thank you. And then I put a lot of the makeup on. I feel like I put the white makeup on more than needed to be, like, you know what I mean? Like, arms that weren't shown. And then first my boyfriend was watching tv, and I stood outside that window and waited for him to notice me. And so I got a little scare there. I was excited about that.

Andy Greenwald

He did notice.

Katie Dippold

He did finally notice how it took a long time. It took a very long time. And then we drove to my friend's house, was having his party, and I had a friend said that he was dressing up as a Sopranos character, but it was just wearing a tracksuit, so it doesn't count. And, yeah, no one was dressed up. And so also, it looked worse than it even is in the photo, because when I smiled my red wine teeth just. It was terrible. Like, I was talking to my friend, like, Jesse, who took the photo, and I was trying to tell her a story, and she was like, I'm sorry, I just can't talk to you right now. It just, like, wandered off of her drink. So that was that night. And then I didn't. I put the tweet up, like, yeah, later that year. And, yeah, it was fun. I feel like it really seemed to resonate with people.

Andy Greenwald

It was a throwback Thursday.

Katie Dippold

It was a date.

Andy Greenwald

So, yeah, so I did have to explain that to my channel with tvt. So, again, it's teaching. It's a teaching moment. But I do think, jokes aside, everything that we've just talked about in this beautiful show is kind of in that tweet.

Katie Dippold

Remember, you didn't know that I was in that tweet until after we started working together.

Hiro Mirai

I remember your I was so starstruck. I was like, you're the bat. Babadoo.

Andy Greenwald

It's incredible. I personally think Apple should have given you any overall you wanted for that tweet.

Katie Dippold

Oh, that's nice.

Andy Greenwald

But if it's it took the show, then okay, I'll take that too. Congratulations to you both.

Chris Ryan

Thank you so much.

Andy Greenwald

It's such a joy and hopefully we'll get to talk about it again in the future.

Hiro Mirai

Thanks for having us.

Chris Ryan

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this,

Andy Greenwald

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Katie Dippold

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