Transcript of Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes. Plus: The Masters, ‘The Pitt’, Coachella, and ‘Love Story’ With Nathan Hubbard and Joanna Robinson. New

The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. We are also presented by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Eddie and the Cruisers. It was a one for us coming off CR month. It was me and Chris Ryan and Van Lathan. All of us are headed to San Francisco to do a live show. We're doing Basic Instinct on Wednesday night. Uh, we'll see if Mallory can make it through without, um, doing like whatever happened with Jim Morrison in Miami when he had offended the obscenity laws or whatever he did. Hopefully we can get through it intact. Coming up on this podcast, we have— listen, it was a great order. They could have gone in any direction, starting with Kevin Wilds doing half-baked ideas, talking a little basketball as well. Nathan Hubbard is going to come on and talk about the Masters and Coachella. And then I hadn't talked TV in a while, so Joanna Robinson. Is on. We're going to talk about The Pit, which I finally jumped into and binge-watched, and I have a lot of thoughts. We're going to talk about Love Story, and we're going to talk about a bunch of Apple shows.

So that is the podcast. So we have half-baked basketball, golf, Coachella, TV. It's pretty good, pretty eclectic. Uh, a couple basketball things from last night really quick. Championship. I thought it was a pretty, pretty lame March Madness. Other than that UConn, the buzzer beater coming back against Duke, the women's tournament, the most fun thing that happened in the whole women's Final Four, which I really enjoy, but the games, you know, we couldn't really get there with the games, but the most fun thing was Geno. Geno, for some reason, just losing his mind with Dawn Staley, and then it seemed like Dawn Staley was going to kick his ass. I love that. I think Dawn Staley punching Geno would have been the highlight of 2026. Sadly, it didn't happen. But that was probably the highlight of that. And then the men's, it was fine. You know, the Michigan-UConn game, it, it was threatening to become good for a while. It never really 100% got there. Every time it felt like UConn was gonna do the UConn thing, something, they'd miss a layup or Michigan would hit a 3. I was very happy for my brother Jalen Rose.

Congrats to him. And then I, I don't know, in 2026, you're gonna look back at that tournament and probably just remember, the UConn-Duke game and be like, who won? Oh yeah, Michigan. I know a lot of Michigan people, they're all very excited between this and what's happened with the football this decade. Maybe it's like a small glass of settle down juice for the Michigan fans. Don't turn people against you. Big picture, NBA-wise, we had a Wemby injury last night that I assume he's going to come back and play one more game, but it did kind of break my brain for a second because if he doesn't get the 60 fifth game, it throws a whole bunch of stuff out of whack, including Defensive Player of the Year, which I don't think anybody has spent one minute thinking about. The big game that happened last night though was, was Denver versus Portland, where Denver basically could lock down the 3 seed pretty much by winning, because the Lakers are going backwards. And Portland's up 18 on them in the fourth quarter. Portland is, I think at one point, 24 for 46 from 3 or so. They were just— flames were coming out of their butt.

They're just making everything. And Denver's hanging around, hanging around, 'cause they're so good offensively now that Aaron Gordon's back. You kind of can't give up on a Denver game. So what happens? They come back, they force overtime. They really could have won in regulation. Jokic missed like an 8-footer, and then they end up winning in overtime. And it was just an awesome, awesome home win. Aaron Gordon was huge. And once again, it's what we talked about on Sunday, like, watch out for the Nuggets. I don't think Jokic's MVP case is dead. I don't. Michael Pina went on Zach Lowe's pod on Thursday and, and, and then wrote a piece for The Ringer on Monday saying, I'm voting for Jokic. And I really got to look at this over the next 5 days because you're supposed to treat each season individually. And the truth is, if you just look at Jokic's numbers and the fact that they're now up to a 3 seed, and I really think you have to be a top 3 seed or one of the, have one of the 5 best records in the league to really seriously be considered for MVP unless it's like 2006 when I, I picked Kobe that year.

There really wasn't a candidate. We have awesome candidates this year. But this Jokic season, it's the most special offensive season he's ever had. It's one of the great offensive seasons anyone's ever had in the history of the league. They're going to be a 3 seed and probably win 54, 55 games wherever they land with a lot of obstacles. Aaron Gordon missed over half the year. Christian Brown missed half the year. They were incorporating a bunch of new guys. They had really bad luck at the end of games, like a lot of games that they just blew and should have won. And the case for, for Shea is a little different because they have the best record in the league, which matters. Shai has been the best crunch-time guy in the league, but I, even though Jalen Williams was out and they had some other guys bounce in and out, that team is just a bunch of dragons. Like, you know, every night they have 11 guys they can throw out there. That would be the envy of almost every other team in the league. So right now on Tuesday, I still feel like I'm voting for Shai, but you know, over the weekend I was starting to look at Wemby a little more seriously and the minutes thing I can't get past, but from an impact standpoint, I was like, fuck.

It's hard to imagine a more impactful guy these last 2 months. Then Jokic beats him on Saturday. Jokic again yesterday with another, like, ridiculous— he's had 5 of, like, the 9 most ridiculous games of the year. So I, I'm just— my point is I haven't crossed him off as an MVP pick yet. And one of the things I want to look at the last 5 days here is Really diving into stuff like if you split the two guys, which team would be better? Who had an easier scenario? Who had the most memorable season? Because I think that matters too. When you think— I have the narrative about the NBA, I had the four questions I always ask myself, and one of them is like, what are you going to remember first about this season? I think you'd have a case for remembering Wemby first this season because just watching him blossom into this generational alien and watching the Spurs ripoff wins like they did might be the first thing you remember, but Jokic would be probably one of the next two things. And so would SGA. So it's just, it's a complicated one. It's really hard.

I want to make sure I get it right, but I just have not ruled out Jokic. So I wanted to make, make that point. All right. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna bring in Pro Champ and then Kevin Wilds. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build a same-game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip-off. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat.

Connecticut.

It. All right. My friend Kevin Wildes is here. He's been coming on since 2008, 2009 range of my podcast to do half-baked ideas. You can watch him on First Things First with Nick Wright, Chris Broussard on FS1. Last time you were on, we came up with, uh, we had two different ideas. One, one involved the tower for food, but then the, the, the one about, the one about playing credit card roulette and that would just be the gimmick of an actual restaurant. Dave Chang said he would fund that right now.

Let's go.

Yeah, he said credit card roulette, I'm in. Can we franchise this? And then I never heard from him again, but he was excited for 10 minutes. So you come out and you do half-baked ideas. These are not fully baked ideas. Normally we talk sports ahead of time, but I have a lot of stuff. You have a lot of stuff. I have mailbag questions.

Oh, that I get to answer?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's my dream to have this become like a Shark Tank. Yeah, this episode I have where I can, I can judge half-baked ideas.

Yeah.

If it's too baked, it's too good. I'm like, that's just an idea.

I have 6 of them that I can tell you as well. But why don't you go give us your, give us your starter. Give us, I'll give us your leadoff hitter.

It's a, it's a little bit of sports just to prime the wheels.

Okay.

First off, Luca's going to Spain to get his hamstring checked out. Austin Reeves staying here. So automatically you got to look at Austin like, why aren't you going to Spain? Do you not care? I'm headed to Spain. I don't know why. It seems Spain is nice this time of year. I'd go to Spain, but maybe Austin, whatever, he's got commitments here. I'm not 100% sure how consulates work. Where, all right, I know the embassies work. If you're in the embassy in France, you're actually in the USA, I think, in the United States embassy.

Yeah.

Could there be some embassy-adjacent doctor's office, maybe exclusively for athletes who need timely European medical procedures, Domestically.

So in the German embassy, wherever that is, we will spin platelets there.

Yes, get your platelets spun right here. You don't need to go to Germany. Also, I would also— and I'm sure the FDA would, you know, say this is not how it works. I would try to say it was eco-friendly, save on fuel prices nowadays. It's an eco-friendly way to get global medicine. Maybe it's just an athlete carve-out thing so you don't have to go all the way to Spain. Luca can stay here, go to the meetings, what's going on. That's the idea.

I really love this. And, uh, like, we have the Canadian embassy is like kind of further away but in my neighborhood. But it's this big, big, big place that I've always been fascinated by. It's just huge. And I always wonder what happens there and whether Like when hockey players are in town playing the Kings, do they just get to drop by the Canadian embassy?

Yeah. Have a LeBath, just hang out.

What happens? Is it like the Masters where they have that cool lounge that all the Masters players can play at? Can just go into, have some drinks and food. Like, do they have that at the Canadian embassy? I don't know. I've never been to an embassy. It doesn't sound like you have either.

No. The other option, and again, this needs more research. This is why it's half baked. There's a certain amount of distance you can get from the coastline where you're just in international waters. So you can have more of like a floating boat.

Yeah.

That you can go out to if you don't want to. But again, that's pretty far. And I think with the, with the waves, it might not be good for your hamstring unless it's a huge aircraft.

But so you're talking about like those, like they'll have those gambling boats in the South.

Yes.

You go off the coast and all of a sudden you can gamble legally once.

Yeah.

No one knows what the jurisdiction is. Like, yeah, we're actually doing Spanish medicine here. There's tapas. It's a nice vibe for Lucas. He doesn't go all the way to Spain. That's idea number one.

I always, I always thought that would've been a great Steven Seagal movie in the '90s. I wish Kyle Brandt could just pop in for 2 minutes. He's working on one of those gambling boats in, in Louisiana. It's like off the coast. Yeah. But meanwhile, it's about to be one of the, he's like a disgraced, used to be, I don't know, Green Beret. Now he's like disgraced. He's like a blackjack dealer on one of those things. Yeah, they're about to Ocean's Eleven the big gambling boat. And thank God he's there as a blackjack dealer, because then you would also get Vegas hands and he'd be feeling out the guys as they do the hands in the first 30 minutes of the movie. It's like, I don't like, I don't like how these guys are communicating. Something's funky with these guys.

Can I add something to it?

Yeah.

Do you, did you watch Yellowstone?

Of course.

Okay. You know where they dump the bodies at Yellowstone?

Oh yeah.

There's no jurisdiction. It's a little bit of that. Steven Seagal is trying to play by the rules. He calls the sheriff. He's like, that's not my jurisdiction. Calls the other sheriff. Hey, you're on your own, man. We don't touch that.

Yeah. What?

There's no authorities here. I have to do it all by myself. It's over a Die Hard situation. Cops can't control it.

So do you think the embassy works that way? Uh, because I don't know. It might. For all we know. I think anything go there.

I mean, I think you're just under the rules of your own country. But again, this is why it's half baked. I think if I do a certain amount of research, it just becomes really a bad idea. So I stop at one point and just keep it half baked.

It would be one of my favorite things that Trump could just come off the top rope and get involved with, where he gets upset that our athletes are flying overseas to get medical treatment and he just decides Unilaterally. I'm just unilaterally, whatever is fair there is fair here. And then all of a sudden athletic performance just skyrockets in America.

Not a bad idea. All right. Number 2, this is a— I see that you're walking a lot. Are you still into walking?

Oh, for the whole— since COVID Yeah. Okay.

Do you go anywhere?

Sometimes, yes, but it always has to be some sort of circuitous route back.

Okay. Yeah, I know you don't live— you don't just, you know, run away.

A couple times we've walked. It was like a special walk, but we walked all the way to the Santa Monica Pier, which I wouldn't recommend. It's a very long walk.

That's too far.

Yeah.

Okay, so last night I went to an Easter brunch. I was just going hard at the Easter brunch. Several desserts. I had a blueberry cheesecake. I had a carrot cake. I had a lot of lamb with the mint jelly. It's going hard. Come home about 6 o'clock. Like, I should go for a run. And it's Sunday. I'm supposed to be on this running program, so I have to run about 6 miles. Usually I like to run to somewhere, go get a coffee. It's like a nice little break point or, you know, have some destination, right? Everything's closed on Sunday. It's late Sunday night, it's Easter, I've got nowhere to run. So now I just run in a big circle and I get back and I was like, I wish I had some sort of goal. I'm calling this Uber Health. You call Uber or it's just a plan. I just enter in my plan and the Uber algorithm takes care of it. Someone comes and gets either my remote control or my car keys, and it's aligned with my performance plan on Strava, and they drop it off 4 miles away and they're like, hey, here's the pin.

We dropped it off at the Santa Monica Pier. If you want your car keys, you've got to go get it. And you sign up for it. So every day, oh, I don't feel like running. I'm just going to, you know, you have to run to get your car. Yeah, you're stuck. You, you have, you have to be motivated to get out because Uber Health has dropped something off 4 miles from you.

And there's a discount because it's promoting good health. It's promoting people staying in shape and trying to, uh, better themselves.

Yes. So I don't know who's paying for that. Again, maybe it's a government thing. If you want to, you could of course call a friend, which then combats epidemic male loneliness. So that's good too.

You're just a huge epidemic right now. You have Nick Wright. You don't have to worry about male loneliness because you have a best friend.

I know what people are being paid to talk to me, but outside of that, I'm just, you know, male loneliness is just an epidemic.

Have you, have you hashed out the Nick Wright thing properly with Jacoby?

No, I don't even know what you're talking about.

Well, I think he felt like he was your buddy, and now Nick Wright's your buddy, and I don't No, Jacoby's grandfathered in though. Okay, I just want to make sure you guys are good.

Of course, yes. Again and again, I really need more friends that, again, aren't being paid to spend time with me since Jacoby and I were co-workers for—

you did—

I mean, a dozen years.

Do you think there's a fixed amount of total time you can spend with another male friend before you basically just run out? Because I haven't run out with House.

Wow.

I've spent so much time with House, and I just feel like— what? Like, we're like LeBron now, where LeBron's like, is he gonna play 24 seasons?

Why not? No, I think you— I think— I think my relationships are so succinct that, yeah, there's plenty of runway.

Well, plus you have the Irish goodbye, so people— you always leave them want anymore. You're the master of the Irish goodbye.

And now it's weird. It's just we're like at a dinner. I'll just drop my credit card.

My wife has an Irish goodbye friend, her friend Meigs, and it's like a known thing. And she kind of like wears it like as a badge of honor.

Is it only in bar situations?

Because it's like gatherings. It's when they're all together. It's when somebody's birthday party. And it's kind of like a known thing now that she's going to do it.

I think the whole world would be better off if we did it. I Irish goodbye like my son's basketball game if my wife and I are there.

It does. Hellos are great, goodbyes are terrible.

That's a great— goodbyes are terrible.

It's great.

Hey you, hey.

But you don't need to say goodbye. Can I give you a mailbag one?

Pretty good. Can I give you a quick thing on hellos? Yeah, this might be a little Larry David-ish.

Okay.

Hellos have gone hugs and big pounds and like, oh my God, it's like, hey, what's up? I was just— just one fist bump. I'm good. A solid old school handshake.

We're way more connected than we were in like the '80s and '90s because now we have texts and FaceTime. There's all these different ways you can stay in contact.

Now you go, first time you see, oh, what's up? Like, you know.

Yeah, a little more performative.

A little bit.

Can I give you, uh, I'm gonna intersperse some mailbag questions between to break up your half-bakes. This is from Megan in Somerville.

Hi Megan.

Um, she sent this on March 4th and wanted to wish a happy International Women's Day to all our fellow female listeners, but now it's April 6th. She lives near Harvard, had this half-baked idea that when LeBron retired, he should get to do some sort of back-to-school thing because he never went to college. He went right to the pros. Could you do your career in reverse? She said it's not fully fleshed out. I don't know if it's reality TV documentary or a horrible scripted movie. What school would he go to? Harvard probably wouldn't allow it, but Ohio State would. And then I started thinking, like, is that, is that like the Rodney Dangerfield movie? Is that the updated remake of Rodney? It's like the one of the best NBA players of all time retires but then goes to college for one more year, Rodney Dangerfield style, and he's rich.

There's something here, like, like Billy Madison style.

Yeah, there's something here.

Is he playing basketball?

I don't— I think initially he's not playing, but then there's some injuries on the team and he really likes to coach and he realizes he could still rekindle his eligibility and maybe come back. And now it's a sports movie. I mean, sports movie crossed with back to school.

He's got to be so old though. That's the problem. Like, he's like 44, but he's not old enough. He would die. Like, it works, I think, a little bit better with Carmelo and Syracuse. Jerry McNamara is the coach.

Oh, and he still has the 3 years of eligibility left.

There you go.

His buddy, his buddy is, can't get any recruits.

It's like, and, and like, and then all of a sudden it's like, Jerry, we need you. Final game. Like, Jerry's got his, he's had his uniform under.

Yeah.

But I think LeBron is, is still, he's too famous.

Okay.

No, not that he's too famous. He's too good at basketball at this point. LeBron would still be, I mean, this is super obvious, but it's insane. The number one draft pick next year.

So maybe it's Chris Paul.

Chris Paul's great.

Chris Paul never had an ending.

Chris Paul and Wake Forest.

He's going back to Wake Forest. Unfinished business.

I love that idea.

I feel like everybody would come to his party too. Unlike at the Clippers, all the kids would want to go. They'd be like, you going to Chris Paul's house tonight? Everybody would be excited for it.

I like that a lot.

All right. What's your next half-baked?

This one's great. This one is great. And this is almost so good. It's probably a real idea, which means it's a bad half-baked idea. Here's the scene. I'll just say I'm the main character at this point.

Okay.

I gather up all of the parents in town, all the sports parents, me and my team of coaches. And I say, look, you want to be involved in my program? So let's say it's basketball. I'll tell you right now, there's zero chance your kid is going pro. And then my buddy comes up and he comes in from right, from my left. He says, there's zero chance your kid's going D1. And then the other guy, or D2. Like, they'd be lucky to go D3. And then it comes back, it comes back to me. We're here to do one thing and one thing only: to turn your child into an intramural champion. It's a full train— all, it's all— the whole program is designed to train intramural champions. At my Easter brunch, yeah, uh, the family friend's son is playing like beer league hockey. He played hockey throughout his whole career. It's like, yeah, this is like almost the end game is to have a bunch of, again, male loneliness, guy friends playing beer league hockey. So it's in the, in the avenue towards beer league hockey is probably different than the avenue towards the NHL, the avenue towards intermural champion is different than trying to go to the NHL.

You don't need to learn a bunch of stuff. You just need to learn stuff that's going to work to win intramurals. And guess what? If you're the intramural champion, you don't feel as good as an NBA champion. Obviously, there's no financial rewards. You're not rich and famous, but when you're holding— you are the champion of that day on that basketball court. Happiness only goes up so high, and you are there.

So as part of the program, you teach the kids how to play flag football while they're also having a couple beers? Yes, we, we learn how to compete when you're really hungover from the night before and you have an 8 o'clock basketball game.

I can't— so I'm trying, I need probably a real trainer to tell me what moves you don't need, but like I'm playing chess and there's chess openings that you can learn that if you master this chess opening you can get to a certain level, you can get to whatever, 1200. But after 1200, your opening is no longer— that is just easily thwarted.

Yeah.

So I'm just going to teach the kids, like, right here, this move works in intramural.

You—

it will never work again. It won't work in D3 college basketball, but intramurals, this thing is great. This spin move is great. This little, like, slow Euro step is great. I don't know what the move is.

So baseball, Instead of teaching kids, all these kids who think they're, we're gonna play Cooperstown for Little League when I'm 12, and then I'm gonna go play, and then I'm gonna play college baseball. And it's like, no, no, no. Let me teach you how to be a softball slow pitch pitcher right now.

Yes. Let's start working on this right now.

Yeah. Let's start working. You can do like 1,000 of these a day.

Yeah.

Right? Kind of spin up in the air. You're gonna be like a machine. You're gonna be the best with this.

You'll be great. And you will have a, you will have a 30-year career, never make a dollar, but you'll be great in your town. People will talk about you. You'll—

30 years. Sometimes it can be 40. And then if you're in Chicago, you learn how to play without the gloves.

What?

Right? Like in Rob Lowe and About Last Night, they would play the softball with no gloves. That's the Chicago thing.

I'm not familiar with Rob Lowe. Is that a real thing or was that just in Rob Lowe?

No, that's a real Chicago thing, I think.

They don't play with softball gloves in Chicago?

No gloves.

There's no— I have no clue. I had no idea that was a thing. I've met plenty of people from Chicago, it's never come up.

Maybe it was the thing in the '80s and they got rid of it after too many, too many people broke their hands. Yeah, they're playing softball, no gloves.

Hey, where's Brian? Broke his thumb.

Oh yeah, again.

What do you think about these gloves?

Yeah, it's the reason we have them.

Nope.

Nope.

We're in Chicago.

Chicago. Men are men. They're eating sausages, drinking heavy beer, and playing softball without gloves.

Not even a mitt?

No gloves. Go watch the movie. First scene and the end scene are both softball with no gloves.

Not even a handball mitt?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Oh, okay. All right.

I really like that one. I like setting the expectations early. And just having lived through it with both of my kids and watching all the parents and how much time and money is spent. Spent on these travel teams and all this stuff.

And happiness is— being the champion and being happy is not just for the pros. Someone's got to be the intramural champion. It'll work.

All right, can I give you another half-baked?

I've got a very fast one, literally. But go, give me the half-baked one and I'll go fast.

This is, uh, this is almost fully baked, but it's from Marcus Reed, and it's about how much time he listened to the made-up NBA Awards pod Zach and I did last night.

Mm-hmm.

And everybody loves awards is the premise. We love MVP. Of course, we like Rookie of the Year. We get all this podcast content out of it. He thinks that how we have in the Oscars lead actor and supporting actor, that there should be a supporting actor MVP, basically the Scottie Pippen Award for the best number 2 of the season. And I was thinking about this and I was like, well, that's a dumb idea. And then I was thinking, I definitely would've argued about this on 7 podcasts that no, no, it's actually Stephon Castle.

I love this.

I think it's pretty good. 'Cause the whole point of these awards is you're trying to measure blueprints. So I almost think that's too good of an idea for a Half Baked. That's like a Fully Baked just should be an idea.

Yeah. Is it, is it named the Scottie Pippen Award?

He named it the Scottie Pippen Award, which would be great. Because, you know, Scottie, his confidence seems to kind of come and go depending on whether somebody told them that they loved The Last Dance that week. If he had his own Scottie Pippen Award, maybe he could let The Last Dance go. But we have like, you know, the Kevin McHale worthy Scottie Pippen, people like that. But then you think like this year, there would be an also funny outcome of if the Celtics won the title again. And it was the Finals MVP conversation. But then there's also the Scottie Pippen Award, and maybe the same guy could win most of the votes for both. I don't know. It just feels like there's a lot of—

who would win yours? The only weird thing about the Scottie Pippen Award is, like, I would—

so I think this year Jamal Murray would have won.

Okay, but then with Aaron Gordon, okay, then you might as well just go all the way. Just make like a Tony Kukoc Third Man Award, like the, like the Chris Bosh Award.

Like, honestly, not against it. Yeah, best third guy. I mean, if you have six, six, let's keep going. Just best—

I'm the best fifth guy. Like, what? I always thought six was, was was absurd because like, all right, like I'm great at, I'm the best, I'm the best fifth guy. So if I was a little bit worse, I mean, I know it's different what a sixth man does.

I don't love the sixth 'cause I, we did one of the awards we had last night was the 20 minutes a game or less award, which is the true bench guy. I like that. You're basically coming in, you're playing 10 minutes or less each half and you have to have an impact. So who that, so we said it was Jenkins on Detroit. Cause he plays.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah. Not a lot of minutes, but then if you have to start him for 12 games, he can actually come in.

The Vinnie Johnson Microwave Award.

Yeah. We have to take a quick break and then we're gonna come back. More half.

I like that.

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This one's very fast. Had to go get tires for my car.

Hmm.

They're like, the car is heavy. You need new tires. Like, how much is that? And how long? Like, we got to order the tires. Like, I don't know. I see tires all over the place. They're not here. Like, no, you got to get different tires. We got to bring them in. It was like a day and a half process to get these tires. Not the biggest problem in the world.

That being said, especially with phones, you can just sit in those uncomfortable chairs, do some tax, listen to a podcast. Yeah.

That being said, then we also went to Daytona for the show, and a lot of it is the pit stop. And in 10 seconds, a NASCAR will get 4 new tires and a tank of gas in 10 seconds. And I'm not saying you would do this all the time, but it would be a fun option to have a NASCAR mechanic shop just even for the experience.

Oh, you need new—

oh, like, oh yeah, I need new tires and a tank of gas. And you pull up and you're done in 10 seconds, but you're paying 5 times as much money. Whatever. But it's such a great experience. It's a great experience. And you've got the person with the flag and they wave it, and there's enough of a runway that you can just speed out with 4 new tires. It's like, it's not— you're like, well, it's going to be too popular. With 10 seconds, it's 6 cars. I mean, I have to get into it. It's 6 cars a minute, so we're doing 360 cars in an hour.

You—

how long can you possibly wait? You get— you put in a— you're on the app for the NASCAR pit stop. Oh honey, where's my time for the car? Oh, I've got to bring it in at 9:10 and 40 seconds is when my time is. You're there and then speed out.

Yeah, so you'd have to pay way more for the mechanics But the flip side would be you're destroying every other tire changer place. You just have all the business.

And look, I'm not— I don't think this idea would land on deaf ears at the NASCAR executive offices as just a marketing sponsored content. Oh, where are you going? NASCAR?

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. How important are the tire— new tires?

That's really good.

Maybe.

And we don't look— we're not getting the best of the best because obviously those guys will be at NASCAR. So it might take 14 seconds, but if it's over 18 seconds, you get your money back.

You know what the name of the place is? Pit Stop.

Well, yeah, that works.

So you're going to Pit Stop later? Yeah, I'm going at 9:13 and 32 seconds.

Oh, that's great. I'll see you. Oh, I'll just miss you.

I'm going at 58 seconds.

I'm there at 9:12.

Almost exactly the same time. All right, what's next?

Let's do this one.

Okay.

Well, you're going to want to— you want a food one or do you want a sports one?

I want both.

Let's, let's do, let's do the food one. Did the Easter egg hunt.

I have a food one that I can follow up your food one with.

Okay.

The Easter egg hunt.

We did the Easter egg hunt yesterday.

Yeah.

The kids are a little bit older, but it's just still fun. So they ran around, they found the eggs in the house, and they're like, all right. They were a little bit mad that the kids don't like change anymore. Yeah, I was a huge fan. I found a quarter in an egg. I was thrilled. Found a Starburst in the egg. Great. We didn't— they don't want change. So I threw a silver dollar in one of the eggs. That wasn't even a big hit. We didn't have any $1 bills. We had a few Starbursts. There was a handful of empty eggs. And they were mad about it. So they were like, you're one— you wouldn't like finding empty eggs. I'm like, I would. So then they hid, they hid the eggs for me and Libby, and then we went around and hunted the eggs, and we had a blast. And it was one part, like, we— they wanted to go get the eggs to find the food. And I think it hits on some very primal hunter-gatherer part of our brain. Yeah, I actually want to go find the food. Even a big shopping a big grocery store.

Oh, I got to go all the way over there. I like it. I don't need everything delivered to me. So it's a restaurant in a large park and you get a plate like a buffet plate, but it looks like you're just in a park. And of course, there's natural things you can forage.

Okay.

Where there's lettuce planted and stuff like that. But there'll also be some just real dishes out there if you want, but there's only one or two of them. Like, oh, you want the— you want the filet? Like, okay, there's, there's one out there. Oh, do you want the Caesar salad? And it's either— there's two ways it goes.

Survivor.

Yeah. So it's—

so you're—

but, and it's either— I can't tell if it's better if it's just like golfing and we're just— it's a buffet in, you know, Central Park Oh, look at that. You want to grab that? And we're just walking around with our plates. Or it's more hunger. Holy shit. It's called Hunger Games.

Hunger Games. You did it. You walked right into it.

Or we're just like, we're in 3-point stances and we're screaming out of the gates to try to find the shrimp cocktail.

Then you, you take it to another level. It's televised and you also have celebrity, celebrity chefs.

Yeah.

So it's like, oh my God, you found— Chang made his slow roasted whatever. And where's that? I gotta find that.

You're just running around.

Yeah.

And he's— and but he's all— Dave Chang's in camouflage. He's in like one of those hunting blinds. Like, oh, it's me, right? It's like a little bit of like paintball. And I think it would be fun.

That's really good. I feel like, I feel like people between ages 15 and 18 would go to that as like the same way they go to escape rooms.

Yes.

You know, it was, oh, we're going to the Hunger Games tonight. Oh my, yeah.

Oh, that's great.

Oh, there's, it's pizza night. All kinds of pizzas. Oh, he found a pizza. It was so good. This, uh, this food one is from a listener named Brian Angel who wants, uh, basically Uber Eats for your emotional sports state.

Great.

For example. You're a Boston fan, you sign up for the service. The Pats win the AFC Championship game. Doorbell rings right after the clock hits zero. You open the door, sitting on your porch, a bottle of champagne and some cigars. Or they lose, like in the Super Bowl. I don't know if you remember when we lost the Super Bowl and the game was over in like 5 minutes. Doorbell rings, on your porch is a bottle of tequila, ice cream, And the 2018 Patriots championship DVD. Um, and then during the summer, like with a shitty Red Sox season like we have now, it's a monthly delivery, almost like when you join a wine club. It's just more beer, it's booze and sadness. So anyway, Half Baked is his thing. Uber Eats for your emotional state. I think there's something there. It's not bad.

I think it's a, I think it's a solid idea. You could probably get the algorithms to start following people's Facebook feeds too and just let it open up beyond sports as well.

The problem is if, well, if you're in Buffalo and Cleveland, places like that, that you know there's gonna be sadness, it would be way easier to stock up on the sad items when we get to like a Josh Allen playoff game.

So the caveat, the only thing I would add, and as long as this is an option, I would like to select— sometimes in these Patriots losses, do you want to feel better or worse? I would click worse a few times. I want to just wallow in it a little bit. Yeah, it's like, oh my, if we lose to the Bills, like, I'd like to feel worse. Uh-oh, here comes a plate of buffalo wings fresh from the famous buffalo wings place.

So you can have a good experience with buffalo.

But you— it opens it up and it's like, ah, you stink. And like your table breaks somehow. They like— I, I'd like to wallow in it a little bit more.

All right, what's your next one?

I don't know. Oh, this one's not bad. Did you know OBJ had a great catch in the flag football? Yeah. Fanatics Fest where the pros lost to our USA flag team. And the same as the elderly have to retake their driver's test, or at least they should have to, some of the older veterans have to go to the combine to just show what actual pros look like in the combine. So I'll see not just a, not just a pro day, like not just a private workout with OBJ. We're like, hey, oh wow, this wide receiver looks good. We're like, well, how does OBJ, who is supposedly washed, air quotes, how does he look? Wow, look at Fernando Mendoza. He completed 35 of 37 passes. Like, all right, but how does, you know, Spencer Rattler throw the ball? How does, how does— who's— I'm trying to think of Kenny Pickett. Does he look like Kenny Pickett? I need some sort of baseline. For veterans in the combine, but I don't have a real twist on that. That's just a normal idea. That one's not that fun. Just veteran trying to figure out how to—

well, I'm trying to figure out how to twist that and I can't.

I don't think there's a twist to it. I think it's just a practical idea snuck in there and I don't think it should really be there. So I'll switch it. I'll just move forward to this next one. We went out to a restaurant and Russell says, the waiter comes over, a great guy. He's just very evocative. And he was— the kids loved him. And Russell's like, man, the waiter smells great. I was like, oh, I didn't notice he was over by you guys. It's like, yeah, I think it's his mouthwash. I'm like, it definitely wasn't his, his mouthwash. I think it was just his cologne that you're responding to. But that being said, mouthwash-flavored cologne. No, the other way around. Cologne flavor. They're sensing stuff via— they— my kids think everything is mouthwash.

So mouthwash that actually serves the purpose of cologne?

Yes.

When people are like, oh, nice cologne, you, you smell freshly groomed. But it's actually coming out of my mouth.

I had a piece of cinnamon gum. My kids might have very sensitive nasal passages.

I was eating that bad eyesight.

No. Is that a thing?

Yeah. The worse your eyesight is, the other senses heighten. Oh, that's why I have good— I have good smell and good hearing because I can't see.

I don't know that.

Yeah, the—

I was having cinnamon gum and they're like, are you wearing cologne? I'm like, no, they don't make— they don't make cinnamon cologne. This is cinnamon. I'm having the cinnamon gum. They go, it stinks. Like, if they're experiencing mouthwash, again, I don't think you want to switch around some sort of a leather-tasting cologne.

Yeah, I don't know how that would— it's a really good half-bake because I don't know if you'd want a cologne taste in your mouth, but leaving your mouth, you'd want it.

That's all I'm saying. I don't want to always smell like mint. No one's like, wow, that guy smells great. Smells like mint. No one likes that. Oh wow, he smells like leathery tobacco.

I have two small half-baked family-related— not, not from listeners, from me. Okay, since you're talking family, one, do you do the thing where you take a picture of like you and your wife, or your wife, and you mail it to somebody, and then they get mad that you didn't clear sending the picture out with them in it first? Does your wife do that?

It may have happened to me once a decade ago, so I don't have any recent experience with that. I know to always clear it.

But that's kind of annoying, right? That every time you just be like, is this okay? Can I send this to Dad?

I do an automatic delete on stuff.

That's—

I'll send a picture where I look bad and my wife looks great as well.

How about this? Can we take it out of both of your hands? Could there be a third party? Photo clearance where you just send it to somebody and somebody gives you immediate— 10 seconds later, like, that one's good, you both look great. And now it's like, well, we're paying the service, they told me the photo looked good, and they're just constantly green stamping everything. And now it's out of your hands because sometimes she'll be like, I don't like that photo. It's like, well, I look really good in that photo and you look okay. Yeah, can't that, you know, but you're always gonna like down the photo that you don't look perfect then. So now we have a third party.

Yeah, it's like an arbitrator.

Yeah, photo arbitrator. That's one. Then the other one, my, uh, my daughter went out for Easter lunch yesterday with my dad who drove, and on the way home my dad started driving down a one-way street because he's 78. Oh my, split second, and then realized and had to back up. And I was thinking we all have these stories about our parents as they get older, and soon we'll be those parents. Um, is there some sort of, some sort of race that could happen? Like, what's that, what's that race in the streets? Le Mans? When they're going through, like, Paris?

Could—

would you watch old people racing with each other if they were, like, heavily protected?

Are they in vehicles?

Yeah, they're in vehicles. It's everybody's 78 years old and up.

Just a senior tour of senior—

it's really a senior tour. It's a senior tour with people like— and if you can't win, you don't get to keep your license. Gee whiz, there's some, there's some real stakes. This is the race you have to win to keep your driver's license for 2 more years. But the cars are heavily protected. They're like, even if there's an accident, nobody's gonna get hurt.

Flip it. Of course it's got a roll cage.

Yeah, you got— they're really in there. That's why it's a half-baked. I didn't figure out the part if there's a bad accident, what would happen.

Anyway, there's plenty of— there's a few one-way streets near me where it's not one-way, but it's like when you get on a highway and there's two— it's like a curving highway and the sign screams wrong way, but it's facing the— it's for the other lane.

Get confused.

And I have a moment of like, I'm like looking around.

Connecticut's really bad with that, especially at night. And then Boston will just have these one-way streets out of nowhere. No, like where you're going down a street and all of a sudden it's— that's it, you can't go.

No, you got to put the— you got to put those spikes up. Yeah, those rental car spikes so you can only go one way. All right, mouthwash colognes we did. Casual Friday, that's a stupid idea. I don't even like— all right, this one is— that sounds stupid too. I need a title for this one. I'm calling it Lifetime Learner. So my kids are going into high school, middle school. They feel a certain amount of pressure to do well on their tests. And occasionally they'll have the classic youthful breakdown of, why do I even need to know this stuff? Yeah, like, and, you know, every— I remember saying that and you come up with some convoluted answer like, well, if you know, if you ever want to be a businessman, or then sometimes I go the other way and abstractly like, well, actually learning is part of— is the destination, your journey. Yes, it's just so then they'll start telling me about stuff that they're learning out of the blue. And I'm like, this is actually fascinating what you're learning. Like, either, either parts of American history or parts of global history that I currently am not learning.

I'm sort of locked in the sports world, and then I'm also just following my own interests.

Yeah.

But maybe I want new interests. And I'm like, well, you can sign up for any class, but I don't know what classes I want. I'm I'm kind of a fully formed person. I want the pressure, right? So I want someone to come in with real stakes. Like, if Russell doesn't do well on a test, it's, it's not probably the healthiest thing in the world. So we try to balance it. But he starts thinking about, like, you know, my grades in college and we try to balance it, but I need those stakes on me. So if we're out to eat, you're like, hey, you want to, you know, go to the bar, I'm like, Bill, I got to go, dude. I got to study about the pyramids or my tax rate goes up. My tax is going to— you know, I'm going to lose a bunch of money. I need real stakes to force me to learn something I'm not currently interested in.

But you already have. Oh, yeah, because you have those stakes doing a daily show, but you don't want to seem like an asshole because you didn't know what's going on with football.

No, but I like sports. I want to learn about— I would like someone to come in and be like, you know what, we got to learn about grasshoppers. And like, oh, why do we got to learn about this? And tests on grasshoppers. You better know what these things are. You better know about their mating habits.

And so like art history, I need—

so I'll never learn it.

I will.

I will never learn it. I need someone like, well, sign up for a class. I won't go to the class.

I need the stakes of the class. So what would the state— the reason this is a half-baked idea, what would the stakes actually be to get you to care?

Financial punishment. I mean, I think physical punishment is too weird, but it's got to be, you know, the care and the physical punishment.

What the hell?

Well, that's what I'm saying. It has to be a financial— has to be a financial punishment.

You have to— you have to lose something that you care about that you currently own. It's like, oh, my Tom Brady 2000 rookie football card. If I don't get a B+ in this class, I have to give that card to somebody else.

It has to force me to study.

Yeah.

And at the end of 3 months, I'll be like, oh yeah, I know all about art history. I know all about erosion. I don't even know what I want to learn about. That's what I don't want to learn, what I think I need to learn.

I like the idea of like you have to sacrifice something, but then if you get like a B+, A-, or above, you actually get something. Thing. Like, you, you're like, I don't know, I love cards. No, I think you get a prize too. Yeah, we're a prize, prize-driven country right now. Hear about prizes all the time. Um, uh, you want to do a couple listener ones really fast?

Yeah, go.

Nick from Chicago is really encouraged by Nathan for You. Nathan when he does something, he's all in rehearsing every single aspect of it. And he wants to know what would happen if Steve Ballmer, before the playoffs, he took all the people that were gonna go to the Clippers game and they secretly rehearsed all of these different chants and things they were gonna do during the game. Nobody knew it was happening. And then the Spurs come in for game 3 and the game's about to start and the Clipper fans are all aligned doing some sort of crazy Phanthen to try to mess with this. They've studied the Spurs. They have chance for individual guys, all things that would fuck with the Spurs in a gentlemanly way, not in a harassing way. Sure. Half-baked idea. I just like the idea of an owner trying to orchestrate that somehow in silence because Nathan Fielder learned how to be, how to fly a commercial jet in silence.

It doesn't seem to be that It—

he could do it with that wall thing he has, but I don't feel like that could affect the game that much. Anyway, that was one.

It's really more, are we willing to have flares? For some reason, and this goes back to the first, um, half-baked idea about what's going on in Europe and different rules. Yeah, big on flares.

I don't understand that. I don't— I'm anti-flares.

I am too, in general. Yeah, you can walk in a stadium, it's like, it's like a huge sparkler, I guess. As long as no one gets hurt. Jordan—

that's Jordan G. Wants to know, um, why speech karaoke can't be a thing. Instead of giving— instead of giving a song— have you had this one?

I, I've done, uh, I think I did like stand-up comedy cover songs, but this is close.

That you just like Everybody goes up and they give— he's like, I'm gonna give the Gettysburg Address now in front of their—

yeah, you give their friends— you give the Miraculous Ice karaoke.

I'm not—

I didn't like that one, but I like that one.

Yeah, he had a better one.

Okay, it's in eating—

it's an eating competition like we have at the Fourth of July hot dog contest, but everyone's on Ozempic and they've been taking this for 2 months. And then they have to eat hot dogs, but they're not hungry because they're taking a Zepic.

No.

What happens? How many could they get to?

I like— I thought speech— I thought speech karaoke.

So you're pro— all right, speech karaoke. And then I did this one with House. I don't know if you heard, but we, we, we had a listener talking about anesthesiology. And anesthesiology bars and whether— I didn't know if you had a take on that.

Well, outside of horribly dangerous.

Yeah.

But you go totally under and you can do it for as long as you want. So the idea was, all right, I'm going to get to the airport 5 hours early for my flight to get through TSA, and then I'll have 3 hours to kill. I'll just go to the anesthesiology bar and get knocked out.

Cause, cause, cause the theory, it's just like, it just, I mean, and then you could just do this.

And House was all in it because House said that there's nothing has made him happier than getting knocked out for his colonoscopy, that he went into this dreamlike state and he loved it and he would do it again.

Yes, that's, that was the other half-baked idea. But I don't think doing it for 3 hours— did you watch— did you see Hail Mary?

I didn't see it yet.

Oh, it's good.

Yeah, it's good.

But you know the premise, like Ryan Gosling wakes up after— yeah, you know, he's been out for a while.

Anytime that happens in these movies, it always comes out great for the person who wakes up.

Uh, yeah, they always have like a long beard. That's always one of the first things, like, I gotta get rid of this beard. Ryan Gosling, too handsome.

Any last topics? Are we done?

I'll just fly.

I'll just—

I'll go. These are the 3 quick ones. Ready? Rapid fire.

Rapid fire. Half-baked. Yeah.

Rapid fire. One, casual Friday in the NBA. Look, everybody's got uniforms on. Casual Friday. Just wear a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. It's like casual Friday. Watch the games. Hey, you guys were just kind of lightly colored t-shirts. We're darker colored t-shirts. But just your own shorts, whatever you want. It feels more pickup.

I think they should do that for the tanking games when, when the season's over for both teams. Like, just make it a casual Friday.

Hey, just wear any t-shirts that you find.

Yeah.

Number 2, another karaoke thing. I was in, uh, trying to listen to Bob Seger. I didn't know the words and I, I wanted to really sing. Just like how there's warnings on your car, the words are right there on your screen so you can sing along to a song that you don't know while you're in the car by yourself. Oh, finally, wild bird.

That sounds more dangerous than my senior citizen.

No, it's just, it just comes, you can, but it's, but it's.

It's in the windshield?

Yeah, it's transparent. Okay. Wild bird mix. Can I attract other animals other than just specific types of birds? Hawks, coyotes, fox. I wouldn't mind a mountain lion. What do I need to put out there? Finally, this is a little bit of your sports czar. Classic, the, you know, the godfather of half-baked ideas where you just wanted to be a government official in charge of all sports.

Yeah.

This is a little bit of, and this is a little bit, you used to talk about your wife, how she would pick up on, you know, emotional, social cues from teams while you guys were watching the game. About the Luka's injury and Austin Reeves' injury where JJ is now saying, Oh, you know what? They were— we had talked to the medical experts. They were cleared. You know, Austin, he was clear too. Just a regular guy who's barely paying attention is on the staff. You're like, nah, I don't know, man. We're down 30.

The VP of common sense.

That's it.

Get him out. Okay. He's going to kill us.

We're down 30, bro. Like, he— I saw him grab his hamstring. You heard it earlier. So like, he shouldn't play. And Austin, he said it was his back, but like, nah, dude, we're down 30. Let Bronny get some run. That's it. The whole season. It's a billion-dollar franchise. Like, well, the doctors cleared him too much. There's a guy when I walk, when I walk my dog, walk around and they have a big screen TV. Whatever that person is watching is the number one show in America. You'll watch football, basketball. Like, I'm like that. The State of the Union. That is the number one hit. Like this. I don't know what the person does. They should be hired by— they should be a media executive. Just like, yeah, I like that. That'll work. I'm the common sense. That's all.

This is great. How are we feeling about the Pats?

The Patriots? I feel great.

Okay.

The Red Sox? I feel terrible. UConn, even though we're taping this on Monday, I feel great. And Celtics? I feel great. So I don't follow hockey.

This Celtics thing has been amazing. It's been amazing. It's been like a gift from the gods.

I was so nervous about Tatum 'cause I think I'm a bit of an Achilles baby, but he's just great and I'm happy for him. And Jalen's playing great, so I'm just thrilled.

I'm happy for everybody. I really like watching the team. I like the coach. I like all the guys on it. It's been a home run. I give this season an A+.

Yes.

It's been an A+ season. They're going to win like 56, 57 games. Tatum looks like Tatum again. It's like whatever happened at MSG almost a year ago, it's, it's like just this ugly blurry memory that almost feels like it didn't happen now. It's great.

Are you in bonus territory? Like, I felt like I was in bonus territory with the Patriots.

Yeah, because they weren't a Super Bowl team. It was amazing they made the Super Bowl. Right. I think all of us were like, wow, this is amazing.

But you're not there with the Celtics.

You're like, I think Celtics can win the title.

Okay. I'm still, I'm in, I'm in a little bit of bonus territory with the Celtics. Like Jalen tweeted like 50 wins in a gap year or an off year or whatever he tweeted. Yeah. I think I'm, I'm in bonus territory. Like this would be a, a championship you steal.

The thing is, I, I wouldn't have totally believed if it wasn't for those games in San Antonio and OKC that week. Where in one of the games they didn't have Tatum.

Yeah.

And then the other one, Jalen got thrown out. But I just thought, I felt like they handled the speed and the athleticism of both of those teams in a way that I don't think a lot of teams can. I think really only Denver can, maybe Minnesota. But I just felt they, they seemed comfortable in those games. That would also be the reason if you're a Knicks fan, you beat the Spurs and you hung with OKC twice when you played them. It's like, at least, At least we seem like we belong in games like this. I think that's how you have to think. The Celtics belong in games like that.

That's right. I believe in the Knicks. I believe in playoff Jalen Brunson. I feel like they're sleeping.

I'm not as much of a believer, but no one believes in them.

No one believes in them.

They haven't really given anyone a reason though.

I just believe, I think it's, I think it's a little bit of a flip the switch team.

What's Nick Wright's chief state of mind right now?

Very good.

Yeah.

Two draft, two first round picks shore up the defense. Patrick Mahomes posting videos of him running around. He's ahead of schedule. Kelsey back.

Has anyone been behind schedule after a major surgery in the last 6 years?

Only Brandon Aiyuk. He's the only one. That's it. He's the— everyone is ahead of schedule.

Everyone's like feeling great and way ahead and wow, we can't believe the progress except for him.

I think, I think the medical community did with athletes did something like the airlines are like, you know what, we're tired of being late. Just say every flight that takes 5 hours takes 5 and a half hours. Like, hey, good news, an early arrival.

Yeah.

We're gonna get you there. Like, we're actually 25 minutes late.

We never did a Masters Half Bake, by the way, but I guess we just forgot.

Do we usually do that?

No, it's just the Masters are this week.

Oh, I don't have any idea.

I mean, the only half-bake with that is just the best part of the Masters is you have to give away your phone and have human interactions with people. And maybe that's just an event that people should just do. It's like a festival. Like instead of Fanatics Fest, it's just like give up your phone and talk to human beings. Make some new friends fest. Uh, Kevin Wilds, I think my favorite was the, was you tapping into the embassies. I think you really cracked something with that. I want to find out more. I'm going to Google it tonight. Great to see you. You can watch Kevin on First Things First. Say hi to the gang for me. Great to see you, my buddy.

Seeing you.

All right. As you know, I love betting golf majors on FanDuel. FanDuel, a brand I trust, easy to build. Buy, bet, you know you're gonna get your winnings instantly. And in the NBA last week, for my Wednesday bet, we rode Victor Wembanyama to a massive, almost 9-to-1 same-game parlay, 35 points, 14+ rebounds, Spurs to win. It hit. So this is gravy. Like, I, maybe I'm on a hot streak, but we came through last week, maybe to keep going. I think in Augusta, I'm looking at Justin Rose 27-to-1, following the advice of esteemed Hollywood agent James Babydoll Dixon. We both like Justin Rose. Something about it. This, if he's ever going to win at Augusta ever again, it's got to be right around now because he's getting older. So. There you go. Be sure to check out all the Ringer specials from House and Nathan and everybody else on the FanDuel Sportsbook app prior to the tournament. Don't forget to use your Mulligan Boost token so you have a chance to take another swing if your bet's not looking good. FanDuel, play your game. Nathan Hubbard is here. He hosts Fairway Rolling with Joe House. He also hosts Every Single Album, a fantastic pop culture music podcast.

We went to the Masters 3 of the last 4 years. We didn't go this year. I didn't care that I didn't go, but now it's Tuesday and I feel sad.

I do too.

I wish we—

I do too.

I, I, I miss the eating. I miss the not sleeping. I miss not having my phone for 3 days. I miss the walking. Um, and I miss some of the storylines and there are some good ones this year, even though we don't have Tiger. Scotty Scheffler, people, there's no conversations left to be had. Rory already won the Masters, so we, we have the the biggest one. What's the biggest story left for you? What's the biggest Masters story we have right now?

I, I think it's what you just said, which is that for since 2022, coming into the Masters, we've had a dominant player who kicked ass in the first 3 months of the year and walked into the Masters and won it. In '22, it was Scottie. Then Rahm walked in in '23 and took finally, you know, the Masters as a Spaniard. Scottie again in '24. And last year, Rory won the Players, he won at Pebble, and came in and broke through. This year, we just don't have a dominant player. There have been classy winners. We've had Morikawa, Scottie's got one, Justin Rose has won, Cam Young has won. Statistically, we have more elite players entering this tournament than at any time since 2004. And so when you couple that with the fact that a bunch of the best guys are coming in on more rest than ever, All 11 of the last 11 Masters winners have not had more than 1 week of rest. And there's guys coming in with 2, 3, even 4 weeks of rest. Scottie, we haven't seen since the Players. He's got a new baby.

So all the facts are gathered.

Yeah, great job. Well, he's 9 days old. Yeah, I think he did look at the calendar, 'cause he managed to sneak it in with 10 days to spare. But I think the story is that with no Tiger and no Phil for the first time since 1994, there's a possibility that we get one of those randoms this year. We get a Charles Schwartzel or a Danny Willett because we just don't have a dominant, he's the man gonna come grab the crown this year.

That's a really professional answer. There's a lot of podcast reps for you. I felt like I was hosting SportsCenter.

I mean, we, we, we gotta deliver something on Fairway Rolling.

But what's the sexy story that's left? 'Cause I have an idea for one. But I don't, I wanna see if you had the same idea.

I, I, you, you tell me. I mean, there's, there's one.

No, just gimme one. Just gimme the, what you think is like the one that would get the gallery the most intrigued there.

I, it's Bryson DeChambeau winning. I, he's the most popular golfer on the planet. He's finished, uh, two, you know, top tens here. He's got second places at the last two PGAs. But he's secretly really struggled in final rounds. Even that 2024 US Open that he won, that's part of the Rory McIlroy narrative arc. Like, Rory gave him that. Yeah. And he's won the last two live events. Walking off that green on the last live event where he beat Jon Rahm, who statistically has been the best player over the last 3 months, uh, he was in tears. Something's going on in Bryson's personal life that he doesn't want to talk about publicly. but for all of his sort of head games, and most of golf is like 90% between the ears, if Bryson has something going on outside that sort of focuses him as the most popular golfer on the course, and really candidly on the planet, Bryson coming in and actually getting this win, he kind of belongs in that players' dinner room, doesn't he?

He's more popular than Rory, like for these next 4 days. I think, I just think Rory's still even though he won, Rory's still the most popular. Rory going back-to-back, I think people would root for that over Bryson.

Yeah, it's only happened 3 times. And in fact, like, in the last 20 years, like, only like 3 guys have finished in the top 10 while defending. It's just so hard. Rory's already on site. I think, you know, you listen to him, he's still processing last year. It was definitely— it goes down as one of the all-time classics, right? That, Tiger in 2019, Tiger in '97, Jack in '86, I think, are the 4 biggest. Master's moment, certainly of our generation. And so I, I— it's just a lot of work to defend and host and, uh, Norman blowing it out.

I put Norman in there too, even though he lost, for sure. Um, I don't have Rory on my list. Okay, so the two— I think Rory going back to back and Bryson winning are the two biggest possible outcomes for Sunday.

Yep.

Sneaky one is Fleetwood, who, if you're just talking about, um, somebody who has been in the WWE for 15 years but never actually got to hold the belt, he's never really held the belt. What does he have? He has 8 top 10s in majors. Even last year when he was trying to get off the hump of PGA titles, I forget what, what city that was, but he finally—

yeah, he won in Atlanta.

Yeah, he seemed like he was gonna choke and then in the, you know, last couple holes rallied back and that was fun, but To me, he's like the most talented, and again, this is casual golf fan Bill, but the most talented guy who doesn't seem like he has one of these. So that was one. But we know he's gonna choke, so it's not, not even gonna talk about it. I know he's not gonna come through.

Only 5 guys have ever won the Masters with 1 or fewer PGA Tour wins. He's coming in with top 10s in 4 of his last 5 starts. He's still playing well after he won the Tour Championship. He's, it seemed like it took him to the next level. Problem for Tommy is that his putting numbers right now are not awesome. He's 120th on tour in putting. And they're talking this week because, I mean, the last couple years you and I have been down there, you remember the weather that we've had. We've had a lot of rain, and I think that secretly made the course a little bit easier for some guys. This year, the weather's perfect. They've had a dry winter and spring. Sounds like the, the Green Jackets are tired of 9 straight years of double-digit below-par victories, and that they might flex the muscle of the course and make it a little bit faster this year. So for putters, who aren't putting well could be a little bit of a struggle this year.

So, uh, Ludwig. Yeah. Second in, in 2024, seventh last year. Him, him winning and putting himself on the map, I think would be interesting, but he seems like too sexy of a pick. That's the one a lot of people are pointing to. He doesn't have the best odds, but he's like in the top 8 for odds. And it's just fun to be like, it's his time. So it, I am also automatically disqualifying him.

I, there, there's no doubt that he's gonna win one of these, but he's shown us some colors over the last month and even last year. So he's coming in with a T3, a T5, and a T5. He had the Players Championship in his hands and he choked it on the back nine. Yeah. There's just no denying it. On Sunday this past week in San Antonio, he had a real opportunity to go win and he had, another mediocre Sunday. And when you rewind to last year, you sort of forget it. He was briefly tied with Rose and Rory on the back last year. He finished bogey, triple bogey, and ended up falling down. So there is— when we talk about a little bit of that scar tissue, he's got quietly a little bit of that scar tissue. But you're exactly right, you know, he's 26 years old, of the generation that's just a shade below 32-year-old Bryson, 31-year-old Uh, uh, you know, Rom, 29-year-old Scottie, that, that's the guy.

Yeah.

And it's just a question of when, not if.

Morikawa, little bit 31 to 1 on FanDuel, but a little bit somewhere like kind of needs a moment. Yeah. As we've been waiting, we've been waiting. I don't trust him either. I wouldn't bet that.

Well, you shouldn't right now because he was the consensus guy at the Players and he was, he had the best iron play on tour in the first start of the year. And you know, Augusta is the You know, the second-shot golf course on tour, right? You've got to be able to hit your irons well. He takes a practice swing on his second hole. He's got all of the handle on him at the Players. Takes a practice swing on his second hole and throws out his back. He hasn't played since. And we've gotten some intel on the ground that he did a, he did a practice round yesterday with Scheffler and a couple of other guys, but he was mostly just chipping and putting. He's withdrawn from the last couple of events. He's not healthy. You should not trust Morikawa this week.

And Patrick Reed, 43-to-1, hometown kid, already has one. It's always fun when he is involved 'cause it's like you get like a little mini villain coming in and yeah. And, and coming back from LIV, I don't know, 43-to-1 seemed like decent odds. I wouldn't bet it 'cause it's not fun to root for him.

No, but I like him as like a first-round leader. I mean, yeah, there is a real redemption arc with Patrick Reed coming back now. He, he left LIV ripped off a couple of wins and a second place on the Euro Tour, and suddenly, like, you forget last year he statistically was second in ball striking at the Masters behind Rory McIlroy. So he, he's actually sneaky playing very, very well. And, and that dovetails into— I mean, you tell me, I, I—

30 to 1 for first round leader.

I, I, I, I don't hate it in the same way that Brooks Koepka— I bet you get better odds there Kepka, his fellow sort of LIV defector, was second on the PGA Tour in approach play up until Houston. Yeah. I mean, Brooks' problem has been the putter, but he came back specifically to prep for these events. I think when Rory won last year, it really triggered a lot of those LIV guys to consider what was happening. At that point, you had sort of the undisputed best players in the world were Scottie and Rory, right? Scottie won two majors last year. And I think for these guys who really all that's left in their 30s is to win majors. They decided that the PGA Tour was the place to be, and both of those guys quietly have been playing really, really great golf.

Here's who I'm picking and betting on.

Okay.

He's 45 years old.

Oh my goodness.

It's his 21st Masters.

Mm-hmm.

He's a 3-time runner-up.

Yep.

He won the 2025 US Open. He won in Torrey Pines in February.

Yes.

He finished 13th at the Players.

He won the 2013 US Open.

He is the most fun— he didn't win the 25. I'm blanking. He won the 2013 US Open. I don't know why I wrote down 2025. Um, he's fun. He's the most fun old guy story left. You need the old guy. Mid-40s, 45. I can identify with this. I'm old and you're old. It's like, look at this old guy battling these young pups. 35-to-1 odds for Justin Rose. I mean, it jumps out at me. Babydoll, esteemed, esteemed agent slash manager James Babydoll Dixon. Also, this is the one he targeted as well. And I like the 45, 46 range as like, this is my last stand. Yeah, if it doesn't happen now, once I hit 47, 48, 49, the, the math is just against me. But 45, 46, still doable. So I think Eye of the Tiger, I have to do it this year. It's wide open. There's no awesome, there's no awesome golfer right now. Yeah, this is a wide open field. I have some confidence. I'm in the mix with some of these things. Why not?

Yeah, I think it's a great call out. I mean, he is now averaging the most strokes gained approach more strokes gained approach than at any other time in his career, more than when he won the US Open in 2013. And we've just watched him make putts so many times in so many clutch situations. At the Ryder Cup, he was dominant at Torrey Pines this year. Now, he's missed a fair number of cuts, but I think to your point, he doesn't give a shit about the week-in, week-out tournament. All he's trying to do is go win a major. And he handled the, the loss in the playoff last year with so much class. That it does feel like he's due. It's a little bit like that when Sergio won, uh, in 2017, right? It, it, it just felt like it was his time and maybe he was due.

So the thinking is it's a now or never tournament for him.

Yeah.

We know he's clutch cuz we see it in the Ryder.

Absolutely.

Like he, he has it in him. It's not, I don't have to worry about like a Tommy Fleetwood situation where I'm up 3 on the 12th hole and then all of a sudden something's going in the water.

No.

And I also don't— who is he fearing? If there's anyone out there, I like 45. That's right where, like, when Nicholas won in the Masters in '86, I think he was 46.

Yeah.

And that seemed ancient, but now 45 is like 39 in 1986. I feel like that's like late 30s, 40 years ago.

Yeah. And, and the, the only comparable potential old guy would be an Adam Scott, but But just for—

I have him down too. Adam Scott, 70 to 1, 45 years old, and apparently, uh, second best guy with the irons in 2026 so far. Need the irons at Augusta.

That's what you need. He, you know, he finished 4th at Riviera and there's a lot of similarities between guys who win at Riviera and guys who win at the Masters. Now, uh, Tiger obviously never won at Riviera, but, but Scott showing his stuff at, at Riviera made our eyebrows go up. I, I like him actually as a potential first round leader just because he's had those moments on this course. And, uh, he is— he— it's, it's him or Angel Cabrera, fresh out of, fresh out of the slammer.

75-year-old Angel.

Or Vijay. Vijay actually showed out in Hawaii at the beginning of the year and played decently well. So I, I could see Vijay as a make-the-cut bet, uh, this year.

I like the Adam Scott, Justin Rose battling in the finals. Two old guys. As the announcers just go nuts. Uh, one other one that jumped out to me just because of the odds, Harris English is 100 to 1.

Yeah, he's been really struggling with both his approach play and his putting this year.

But where's he from?

He's from— yeah, okay, fair.

Georgia. Yeah, had success last year, but that— because he's been struggling, the odds are, are crazy, 100 to 1. But I don't know, I'd when the, when the people are from Georgia, I always do feel like that's like a little bit of a something. Like if you're ever gonna get your shit together, it would be in your home state course, you know?

Yeah. Well, with, with that in mind, you might, you might look at Jacob Bridgeman who won a golf tournament earlier this year and, and has actually been at the top of the FedExCup standings in the beginning part of the year.

Okay.

He's kind of an unknown, but who has just surged to a ton of success, basically he's the best putter on the PGA Tour, went to Clemson, so he's not far from, uh, Georgia, and certainly from a regional perspective understands that golf. Now, first-time winners, you know, the last 16, we haven't had a first-time winner since Fuzzy Zoeller, so, right, these guys don't tend to win. But, you know, from a top 10, top 20 standpoint, Jacob Bridgeman is just that guy right now and worth taking a look at.

80 to 1. Yeah, pretty good.

I mean, there's a couple other guys that you got to pay attention to. And, and you talked about Harris English. My concern for Harris is that he had like a Jordan Spieth 2016 at the Masters moment, except his was at Bethpage at the Ryder Cup, where he just really, really struggled. He and Morikawa were a pairing that fans got down on, and they didn't play well, and it sort of started the unraveling of, of the U.S. team. Not clear to me that that he's recovered from that. But the guy who was sort of the dog at Bethpage for the U.S. was Cam Young, right? He got that breakthrough win. He's the last regular season event. He really is. And, and he's tied for 5th in most, uh, top 10s at majors. He's got 6 top 10s since 2022. That's only behind Scottie, Rory, Xander, Bryson, and Rahm, all of whom have won. So, you know, he's finished T9, he's finished T7 here. He's shown that he can do it. And the game, you know, the last time we saw him was at the Players Championship. In the last 2 years, Rory and Scottie both won the Players and then went on to win the Masters.

Cam Young just won the Players. So he's a, he's a very interesting pick this week.

I'm like a 6 on the Masters this year.

Really?

I mean, I love the Masters every year. I'm just saying there with like, no, I got really had my hopes up for Tiger. Howson and I talked about it last week.

Yeah.

I, all the, all the little smoke signals that were coming out that he was gonna play. I really like, to the point where we were like, should we go? Should we try to rally last minute? That combined with the Rory thing being a year after the Rory thing, I think there's something with golf majors where when there's like a spectacular generational tournament, it always feels like the next year sucks.

Yeah.

I don't know why that is.

There's a definite letdown possibility here for sure.

The weather, I think, is going to be weird. I don't know.

That's the—

I'm glad we're not going.

Okay, we've talked ourselves out of it just in the course of 15 minutes.

Um, Coachella, really quick. Yeah, um, still happening apparently.

It is.

Um, my, my son is apparently going this year.

Oh boy. Would you ever go to Coachella? You just can't. The crowds are too much for you.

I told you, it, it's, it checks all the boxes I have for things I wouldn't want to do. It's a long car ride. You have to like plan way ahead on where you're staying. It's large groups of people and all kinds of possibilities for getting COVID again. All these different things.

Dirty ass kids.

A lot of walking. I never feel like I'm in the right spot. It just sounds horrible. I don't think I've been to a mu— I'm so old. I haven't been to a music festival since like the K-Rock Hot Dog, whatever, whatever the one, what was that? The weenie roast?

Yes.

That was really fun. I saw one of those like in the height of like the comeback of alternative music. I don't know if I could top that.

Come on, man. You got The Strokes out there this year. You got, uh, I mean, all eyes are on—

I hope The Strokes is pretty exciting.

Yeah. All eyes I think are on Justin Bieber because what's not clear is, you know, listen, he's had a lot of struggles, right? He's, he's maybe the Tiger, uh, right? He has had some struggles, right? And the question is, you know, is can he pull off an entire show? Because he has not been able to tour for a long time because of a bunch of issues. And so he came— he walked out on stage at the Grammys in only his boxers and played what people thought was a pretty compelling set until he walked off and left his loop machine going and then walked back on to turn it off.

Right.

So he had sort of a double leave, which made people a little bit unsure. But look, Bieber, Bieber secretly put out a really great album, and the only question is, I think, whether he can deliver a full show. If he does that for 2 weekends in a row, his career's back.

And then Sabrina Carpenter. You're compromised on the Sabrina Carpenter question because of business interest, but seems like she is the biggest star at Coachella.

Yeah, correct. It's a big one. Yeah, I think she is. Um, nobody works harder than her, and She's just, she's sort of been able to stay above all of the messiness that a bunch of these pop stars get into and just deliver. And it's because she just, she just, she's got a bunch of hits and she gets up there. She's got, she's cornered, you know, smart, uh, cute, dirty lane. And, uh, she just, she's kind of more clever than anybody else.

House has cornered that for us at The Ringer.

I guess he has.

Just the dirty part at the end. That's the other part.

I was going to say.

Not younger.

He's got the dirty.

Not really cute. Dirty though. Dirty he has. And Taylor Swift is just— we're going to get the "she's having a kid" announcement anytime and taking 2 years off. Is that— we're just headed that way?

We're definitely headed for a wedding. The thing that I don't know is she just never stops working, man. And I think even though by the sort of streaming numbers and the statistics, this last album was technically her biggest, in terms of the way that it pierced culture or didn't pierce culture, I think it probably feels like a little bit of a disappointment. Disappointment. And her history is not to then go away. Her history is to keep going and lean into it. So, uh, you know, it's now been a couple years since she wrote all these songs. There could be more coming.

Well, there— the issue for her is once you start skewing a little older, and then younger people want their own version of you, and it's really hard to win that group when they just like, I like this person, they're closer to my age, and that you belong to this other generation, and I want one for myself. And now you're battling against that, which is—

She's 36. You got a whole gener— It's just like, you know, in golf, there's this whole new generation of Ludwigs coming up who are staking their own claim and who young people seem to identify with. Again, statistically, she's still crushing. Her fan base is massive. But it does make me wonder, you know, the love story, like, wedding between John Jr. and Carolyn Bassett, like, we haven't had one this big for a long time. I wonder if they may just run into a cabin in Georgia, speaking of Georgia, just like they did to get this done, to get it away from, from where everybody's going to— the prying eyes on this thing are going to be ridiculous.

I think it's the opposite. I could almost see them like pay-per-viewing it. I think it's going to be a big— I think they would want to go Diana-Charles, early '80s level.

Yeah, I mean, it's coming. We have no details. I think it's going to happen over the summer. So I'm waiting to hear. But if I'm them and I, I think they do it small and get this thing over with.

The bigger question to me is, can somebody make influential, awesome music when they're happy with their personal life?

Correct.

It's a great question. We've been trying to answer it for 70 years. And, um, and you go back to all of the best albums by all the best artists, for the most part, are people who were in pain, upset at somebody, um, felt felt betrayed, felt hurt.

Generational angst.

Yeah. Felt unwanted, felt misunderstood. And that's what most art comes from. And if you're just like, yeah, this Travis Kelce guy's great, I'm having a great time, then what are you singing about?

I think that's the concern. We just got 2 EPs from U2 that we didn't need. We just did not— I love it.

It's true.

You know, give me the young Bono.

U2 was done, and then they came back in 2001. It was basically they They had already won. They did everything they could possibly do. And it was like, it's a beautiful day. Like that was, that was their album. They're just happy. It's like, hey everybody.

Yeah. They started forcing our, their albums onto our iPhones. It was a mess. But yeah, I, I, I do think you're onto something, which is why, by the way, Stevie Nicks, there was like a fake album announcement. Yeah. There was a fake album announcement yesterday that got quickly corrected, uh, with People magazine. But supposedly, I don't know, we still may get a little Lindsey Stevie drama before it's all said and done. Come on. Yeah, I think there's a little buzz that perhaps there's going to be some more music together. I, I don't know, man.

Supposedly there's a big documentary coming out about Fleetwood Mac that obviously was devastating to me because that was my all-time dream music documentary ever. Um, somebody pulled it off and got everybody to talk, and, uh, and I, I'm really interested to see how it plays out. As we discussed many times, I know, the most interesting band of all the bands.

We gotta get you on every single album talking about Rumors.

That's the 50th anniversary.

I know, it's my white whale.

This is it. All right, Nathan Hubbard, anything else before we go?

No, I just wish you'd— I mean, come to Coachella weekend too. We'll go to the Sahara tent.

You can see there's no way— weird EDM scenario where I ever go to Coachella.

It's over for you.

Plus it's during the, during the playoffs and stuff. Basketball, like last weekend of basketball. Yeah, I don't, I don't see it happening. Excuse. We're too old. All right. Well, let's watch some Masters. Let's leave Coachella to our, to our children.

Um, we'll watch the livestream Coachella and, and we can watch the Masters on the couch this weekend and see if we get a little more drama than it looks like we're gonna have going in.

All right. Well, thanks for coming on and bloviating about the Masters. It was great to see you, Nathan Hubbard. We could see you on Fairway Rolling and, uh, every single album. Say hi to House.

Will do.

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The Audi Q3, made for the S life. Visit AudiUSA.com. All right, our friend Joanna Robinson is here. It's been a while. It's time to talk TV. You can hear her on the Prestige TV podcast with Rob Mahoney and others, and you can also hear her on the House of R podcast. But I caught up on The Pit. It's a big thing. You'd been— you and Rob, a bunch of people in my life have been pushing me, and I was like, I don't know. And then last week my wife was just like, all right, I'm just gonna start watching. I was working on a podcast and kind of like half watching on the couch. And then now I'm like three-fourths watching, and then by then I'm in. And then we ended up watching 28 episodes in 4 days.

How long— so how long do you think it took you to hook you all the way in?

Probably around episode 3, 4 range.

Okay.

Once you have a feel for it, I, I don't know what took me so long. I knew I'd like it cuz I really liked ER the first 5, 6 seasons. Yeah, um, but the premise of it is just so smart where they're, they, they're basically looking at ER from a million years ago, like, that was the biggest show we had. Medical shows always work. And then it's like, you know what else was a big show? 24. That show crushed in the 2000s. Well, what if those two shows just merged together and we had Noah Wylie on it? I wonder if this will work. And we'll put it on HBO. And we'll be able to push the envelope with some of the stuff you see in the ER. And I mean, of course this worked. This must have been the easiest pitch of all time.

What do you— what do you make of the idea that initially, rumor has it that initially they wanted to make it an actual, like, Dr. John Carter spin-off show? Like, Noah Wylie still playing John Carter just this many years later.

So I don't feel like— I just feel like he's Noah Wylie with both characters. I don't even really remember John Carter enough to know what the differences are, but it's basically the same guy, right? They tried to give this guy a little bit of a backstory, but it's— I still feel like it's John Carter. They're just calling him Dr. Robbie.

Yeah, it's basically the same guy. The, the, the story purportedly is that the Michael Crichton estate was like, give me that money if you're going to make it off of ER. And they were like, uh, never mind, it's Dr. Robbie. He has nothing to do with John Carter. It's completely different city. It's a completely different hospital.

By the way, smart decision. They didn't need John Wells or any of those people for this. Why would they have to pay them?

Yeah, John Wells.

I mean, not John Wells, Michael Crichton.

Yeah, the Crichton estate. Yeah, I mean, I think that— I think this show is an absolute smash, and obviously, it's winning awards, it's hugely popular, but yeah, it's so addictive. And there's something about— there's something so old school, of course, about just spending all this time with characters that you're interested in. And that's what season 2 has really become. Like, you and I were talking a little bit earlier today about the differences between season 1 and season 2, and season 2 is just so much more— Hey, do you like these people, or are you, at very least, interested in these people? Then you're just gonna spend time with them, not do that big, like, mass shooting premise that they did in season 1. Yeah.

I gave you my theory that season 1 felt like the kitchen sink. We have no idea if we're even gonna get a second season. Let's go all in. We have 15 episodes. We'll throw everything into this, and we'll make this, like, the craziest day an ER could ever have. All in 15 hours. And then season 2 is like, "Hey, we want this show to go on for 6, 7, 8, 9 years. We can't do the kitchen sink thing again. Let's take our time." Because I thought season 1 was better, but I understand why they played season 2 the way they did.

I also think season 1 is better just because it was so unexpected. Like, we just didn't see the show coming at all, and it absolutely swept everyone up. But I mostly agree with you, but I also think it's a— You know, they were insecure in their first season because they're like, "We're not sure that people are going to—" emotionally latch on to these characters, that they'll even be able to tell what's going on. There's so many characters they're introducing. In season 2, they have the luxury of, "We're already invested in Frank Langdon. How is he gonna come back to the ED?" Or, like, you know, all these other characters, we're already in the middle of their story. So I feel like they don't— It's a little bit more self-confident in that they don't feel like they need a big event in the second season to get us in.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good point. And also, you're discovering a show, as season 1 is always gonna be a more fun show. Shiny, yeah. It's this whole new world. I think one of the things I really like about it is sometimes we don't get resolution with some of the stuff that happened. Like, in the first season, you have that lady comes in who's clearly probably being sex trafficked with the pregnant lady. Right. Yeah. And we're there with them for maybe 3 episodes, and then they just kind of leave. And then they leave. And you're like, "I wonder what happened." And you just don't know because that's probably what it's like to work with an ER. You're constantly— probably asking, like, little questions to yourself, like, "What's going on with that family?

What's going on with these people?" Right. And they're not, um— Yeah, they're not trying to make a documentary. They're not trying to be, like, extremely realistic with this show. But they are trying to show you people who are, in the span of the same episode, right and wrong. You know, like, there's no character on this show, maybe, uh— No, not even Mel King this season. There's no character on this show who's always right and always gets it right and is always correct in their opinions. And there's no— Most of the cases aren't clean like that either. You know, the mistakes are made, things are missed, you lose patience, you win with the patience, but it's— you never know how it's gonna turn out inside of the pit. I think the one thing you can always rely on is that they're gonna try to really challenge your expectations about something. They like to show you a character and ask you to assume something, assume you know who they are, and then turn the tables on you at some point. And so, that might get— tired around season 3 or season 4, I don't know. But for right now, that formula is really working.

Well, they also have— if you're going to extend the tail of the show, you can always just get rid of doctors, which is what they're doing.

They had a big announcement this week that they're getting rid of a main character, and they got rid of one in, uh, season 1 as well, uh, Dr. Collins, right? Dr. Collins left after season 1, and they've got another casting announcement this season. So yeah, you can rotate the cast in and out. How are you feeling about— there's so much excitement around the night shift crew. How do you feel about the night shift crew as they're sort of clocking into the ED at the end of season 2 here?

It's a new wrinkle. I mean, as you know, I own a lot of Sean Hattisey stock. Dr. Abbott, you love him. I do. Good tennis player. I've played tennis with him a bunch of times. But it was funny knowing him before he got this show. 'Cause, you know, everybody out here, it's like, "I'm trying to grab this job." You grab that job, and then you end up on this show, which is like one of the phenomenon shows of this decade. So I want more of him. And just in general, like, I'm starting to get a little tired of some of the people that have been on a lot, and I want new people.

Sierra and I were talking about this on The Watch last week, this idea of maybe in the second season, they could, instead of showing us a whole day shift, They could show a sort of half a day shift, half a night shift, you know, like move the night shift in even a little earlier onto the roster. That could be interesting. But yeah, I'm curious to see who they bring in who's new next season. I really— What did you make of the new med students we got? We got Joy and Ogilvy this season. Like, did those additions work for you? I just—

I don't think there's been— Like, who's your favorite of all the side? I mean, everybody— It's so funny. I went through all the phases of this show, and clearly my favorite character was going to be Dana. Like, there's just no question. Of course. And so right in, it's like, well, that's CR's favorite character. It's like, of course, should have guessed. Um, of course she gets punched having a cigarette, which I thought was a tough one. Tough one for cigarettes break lovers because I was like so excited she was having a cigarette break. I was like, I couldn't love Dana more, and now she's having a cigarette break and then boom, some guy assaults her. But, uh, yeah, I love Dana. Um, but then I probably— my My, my other favorite one is the one who didn't have an apartment in the first season. Oh, Whitaker. Whitaker. Yeah. And I, I don't know, I felt like I was like strangely invested in him. Um, yeah. And there's a couple I really don't like, but I know I'm also not supposed to like them.

Who don't you like that you feel like you're not supposed to like?

Well, the one that turned in, uh, our guy. All he is doing is trying to dip into some pills. Leave, leave the man alone. He's still doing his job.

What's wrong with skimming some drugs from people who need it?

She's not hurting anybody. She's literally hurting people, but it's fine. No, I didn't really like her character, and I understand why she did, but I thought in season 2, they have really ramped it up with her and made her more know-it-all-y. And they're clearly trying to make her a little more villainy, and it's working for me because I don't like her.

Dr. Santos. You're out on Santos. How do you feel about bringing Langdon back the way that they did this season? This season. I'm a huge Frank Langdon fan, so I'm glad he's back. But Rob and I have been talking a lot on the Prestige show about the fact that they brought him back without really seemingly to involve HR. And he's— the drawback of, "We're going to do an entire shift one day in a season," is he's just speedrunning his 12 steps to just be like, "Amends, amends, amends, amends," in one day.

Well, wouldn't they say it's like 8 months? Months.

Yeah, between, between the two, I think 8 or 10 months. Yeah.

So yeah, I had some notes. It felt like they glossed over, um, it felt like a multi-part crime that he was committing of, you know, uh, putting patients in danger, stealing drugs. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing where you get your license back. Um, and I also understand why, uh, Dr. Robbie was upset about it. Thought that was fair. I think he should probably not be too trusting. But yet it's— this is one of the things about the show. I'm like rooting for him to get his shit back together. I like the character. I actually thought he was, other than Dana, probably the strongest, most realistic character. I was— I'm interested in him.

I'm, I'm, I, I'm really invested in Dr. Langdon's redemption arc. It's just funny to watch it try to— him try to make it all happen in one day, one shift of a—

on the ED, you know, it's a tough one.

Fourth of July. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We've seen this before. Like, I thought the first few years of ER, I think— I still think they hold up, they're really good. But like when Anthony Edwards, his character got assaulted and then was dealing with all— like basically had PTSD from it, wasn't telling anybody and was trying to keep working. You're like, holy shit, like And he's in charge of these, uh, you know, trying to do the right thing with patients and all this stuff. And this— we're watching this guy unravel. Like, that whole concept is really fun for these hospital dramas.

Yeah. And, uh, I don't know if you were still watching the show when it happened, but Carter, uh, Noah Wiley's character, had a, had a drug addiction issue on ER.

So like, I think I was out at that point.

Yeah, there's, there's no, uh— when Clooney was out, you were out. You're like, I'm done.

Clooney's gone, I'm gone. I, I did a good like 6, 7 years I thought— when was the one when, uh, he got— him and Kelly Martin both got attacked? Yeah, what song was that? It was like a Nine Inch Nails song. I thought that was one of the best, like, 5 minutes I've ever seen on television.

Some of the most traumatizing things.

It was really disturbing. Yeah, like really deep, deeply disturbing.

Yeah. Um, that was like— I want to say that was season 5, something like that. I think I lasted through Clooney.

Yeah, um, through Kelly Martin.

And then once they bump her off, you're done.

I started watching because Sherry— I told you this— Sherry Stringfield, who I loved on NYPD Blue, was also on ER. And then that was like, I'm going to follow her there.

And that was it. I don't have the answer to this, but I wonder how much— maybe they've talked about it, but I wonder how much pitching this to Casey Bloys at HBO I wonder how much they're looking for shows that will also help boost some of their library shows. Because if you watch this on, you know, Max or whatever, it goes right to ER. And we've heard from so many people who are watching ER for the first time just because they love The Pit so much and they want to spend more time with Noah Wiley in the hospital, and it's suggested to them on the app. And so they're like, "Okay, let's go ahead." Well, it's funny.

If you notice, he's on the screengrab for the show, at least on my TV. Yeah. It's like the young Noah Wiley who doesn't have— 30 years of ER disasters wearing on his face. Exactly. Exactly. No, the first 5 years of that show are unassailable. I mean, it was some of the best TV. They had the best directors. They did a Tarantino episode. It was really great. Ewan McGregor was on.

Yeah.

Um, and also like a really overqualified cast, which I think if you're gonna ding this show, ER had people, especially the first couple years where it was just, it was immediately clear Clooney was a major star. Edward, like, it was like, this guy's making movies. Like, you could just see it. You knew Julianna Margulies, she was headed to other things. Mm-hmm. Sherry Stringfield maybe was like, this is where it's gonna end. Yeah. But Noah Wiley was like, what's gonna happen with this guy? I don't know. You could tell me anything.

Right. And he, you know, he was on there for so long. Eric LaSalle, of course, was also—

Eric LaSalle was another one. He was great. And then Gloria Rubin was on that show. She was great. Like, yeah, I just feel like they—

and then they like— Brought in Linda Cardellini, you know, like, yeah, some of the late, late people were amazing too. But yeah, no, you're right that like, um, that the pit, other than Noah Wiley and our guy Sean Hattisey, you know, this is a lot of people that we have not seen at all. They're either brand new to the industry or were working in theater. But I think that's, that was a budgetary gamble they made, right? To have this massive cast that they could pay very little money to. And the whole— and budgetarily, to set it all inside this one set saves them so much money. They barely ever leave this one set that they've built. So it's an inexpensive show. It's a huge phenomenon. It's probably gonna win the Emmy again this year. So it's just like one of the biggest return on investments. You know, you compare that to like a Thrones show, which is costing them millions and millions upon millions of dollars with, uh, and is less of a cultural phenomenon than The Pit. Is, at least right now.

But you know what's funny about ER? Like, most of those people were nobodies. I didn't know who any of those people were except for Anthony Edwards and Sherry Stringfield. Those are the only two people I knew. I knew Eric LaSalle from Coming to America.

Yeah. Right? Let Your Soul Glow. Yeah.

He was at least a little famous. Yeah. The bigger picture to me is, like, first of all, are just hospitals, police, and fire— these are just the undefeated things that we have for the rest of eternity? Yeah, every 10 years, like, just, all right, fuck it, let's do it again. I was watching General Hospital when I was a kid, when Luke and Laura were on there. And even, like, hospitals— that wasn't even— there was a hospital show before General Hospital that was huge. Um, I remember when ER and Chicago Hope were going at each other at the same time. It was like this big, big thing. Then Grey's Anatomy, 10 years later. It feels like every 10 years there's another one of these.

Yeah, I think what's interesting about this show is that they're really trying to beat the Grey's Anatomy allegations. So they've insisted, like, we're not going to do relationships inside the show. We're not going to have people hooking up in exam rooms. That's not the show we're going to do. So Shonda Rhimes took the medical template and then made just a soap opera about it.

She Shonda'd it.

Yeah, she Shonda'd it. And so they're like, we're not going to do that. Well, I like the 24 comp. We're gonna— this is our premise on that framework of a medical show that never, you know, never disappoints, like always comes through.

Yeah, it'll be interesting if they spin it off and they do about a group of podcasters, right, right before the White Lotus season finale, the 10 hours leading up to it with crazy shit happening in the office.

They keep trying to make podcasting work on TV, but you can't make it work because they, they just keep pretending it's radio and it's just not the same thing at all.

I'll go further. Not only Has it not worked? It's been really, truly terrible every time. Embarrassing. There's not been one outcome where it's been awesome. Um, so Noah Wiley. Yeah. Who was— I don't want to say his career was over, but it kind of had hit the end of the line, right? And I think even he talked about that in some of the interviews, like, yeah, I was probably gonna have to start selling my house, and like, my moment had kind of come and gone. I just felt like Noah Wylie was so good in the show. I kind of didn't really totally see it coming in the way he's in. I think the stuff, especially in season 1, the stuff he's doing week to week, I was just really impressed. I know he won all the awards. I'm not breaking new ground saying this, but it's weird somebody in their 50s to be like, I didn't know you were this good of an actor.

I think he's incredible on the show. I have been talking for the last last couple weeks or whatever about, should he take a slight backseat in season 3 just because he's doing so much? He's writing, he's directing, he's EP, he's the face of the show on every single interview. That's mainly because I'm concerned about Noah Wiley's mental health. In terms of Robbie being the center of the show, he is incredible. He's so watchable. You find yourself watching his face to see how he's reacting to something. You might not always agree with how he's reacting, but you're always interested in what does Robbie think about this? And there is no show without Noah Wiley. Uh, here, that might not always be true, but right now, there is no show without Noah Wiley. I'm sure they want it to run forever, and perhaps eventually he'll Clooney out of there. But, like, it's, uh, it's his show, and it's so— Like, you love to see it. He— I think he stayed employed since the end of ER. You know, he was making, like, the Librarians movies for TNT and stuff like that. Like, he was working, but it wasn't anything like this.

And to see him sort of— All the way back front and center, in the limelight, in the biggest thing going on TV right now. He's getting his, like, Walk of Fame star, uh, you know, in a couple weeks, I think. And it's just like, I don't know, you love a comeback story.

No, I mean, his, his career was at the point where he would have been like Jon Hamm's buddy in Your Friends and Neighbors who was actually stealing money from his boss. But he would have been like the third or fourth lead. Right.

If even that, because he wasn't even getting that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's carrying the show.

And I'm sure there's so few awesome parts. I'm sure there's other actors in his age range who are like, fuck, what a great part. And what you said about how he really is the moral compass of the show, but he uses silence really well. In the first season, when that couple, they don't want to take their son off the ventilator, and he's trying to get them that way, and they're like, here's what we want to do. He does that, like, Noah Wylie pause. And just, like, makes a couple faces and is like, "Okay, I get it. All right, I'll come back." But it's just like you can read his face with what he's thinking, which is a really hard thing for an actor, I think. I've been really impressed.

How do you feel about the season 2, "Robbie's on the edge, Robbie might be contemplating suicide, Robbie might not be coming back from his trip"? How do you feel about that storyline?

Well, I thought it was interesting he rode a motorcycle without a helmet. Mm-hmm.

And you work in the ER, and you're Mr.

Safety, and you're just flying around Pittsburgh. Uh, now I know they're trying to drum up this stuff. One of the things that's so cool about his character in the show is that, I mean, I don't really know anything about his background with who he was with, what's his What's his type? You know, like, what is he going to meet somebody? Is it like there's no date scene? We don't see Dr. Robbie at a bar, like, having a drink with somebody he met online like that. The show just punts on all of that, and they're all about, like, the hospital and the work and the relationships and the work and all that other stuff. You know, the closest they'll come is when he's on the roof or, you know, the very last scene of the last episode of the first season. But it's just not interested in that stuff, and I kind of like it.

Yeah, I think they're trying to get that a little bit with bringing in this guy Duke, who we worked with on the motorcycle. And they'll bring in people's family, like Mel's sister Becca comes in. The family members come in. Dr. McKay's dad, played by the great— her own dad, Brad Dourif, comes in in season 1. Her ex-husband's there. They have family kind of coming and going a little bit on the edges. But yeah, it's mainly about the work, which is sort of the whole point of the show, which is about— these people have terrible work-life balances and like their lives are their jobs, so they don't have time to have other relationships at all. Um, right.

And then you use that as the crutch for why you don't have really— because my job, right? But your job was also like all-encompassing.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what other thing I love about this show? Tell me. Just the random guest actors that pop up where you're like, hey, that guy! It's like the guy from Last Days of Disco. There he is! What's he doing?

What a call. What a call.

Yeah, there's a million of those on this show.

Do you want them to keep it like small, like, hey, it's that guy?

Because eventually ER was like, Sally Field's gonna, you know, that was one of the reasons I stopped watching. And I thought it hurt Friends too with the cameos. I never understood that. Um, it's like on SNL when they just, they try to write sketches so some celebrity can walk out and the crowd can go nuts. I, I like when Like, they had— this is like the all-time deep cut, but in season 1, they had the guy who was in one of my favorite, uh, sports movies as a kid, Fast Break, who was in, um, Vision Quest, who was in Officer and a Gentleman as the guy who was rooming with Richard Gere. Tall black guy named Harold Sylvester. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the old guy in season 1. I was like, Harold Sylvester is back! But they had a bunch of those. I would much rather see that than than celebrity cameos.

That's really fun because every week we hear from listeners on the Prestige Feed who are really excited about a certain— they had an actor who was on Law Order, all the different Law Order franchises. So the Law Order people are chiming in. Or Lou Ferrigno's son, Lou Ferrigno Jr., was on playing the sort of orthopedic guy who comes in and holds up the severed leg. And our listeners sort of lost their mind. They're like, that's Lou Ferrigno Jr. He's on 9-1-1. We love him. And I was like, The Hulk's son is here. That's cool, you know. But yeah, Mary McCormick showing up.

I feel like they're bringing— Mary McCormick was a good one.

Yeah, they're bringing these people for like one or two episodes. Um, Elvin from The Cosby Show was on this last week, you know. Like, I think that's really fun. I agree with you.

Yeah, we need to go a little more '90s, early 2000s. Maybe get some sort of random Party of Five person. Ooh. Just really keep me on my toes. I'm mad that I wasn't watching the whole time because I would have loved listening to you and Rob. Try to break this stuff down over just watching 28 hours of this over 4 days.

Well, did you watch— you and your wife watched it together, or did you break off and sort of plow? No, we did no couple—

we did no, uh, streamer cheating. Okay, because I was able— because, because of the setup I have for my job, I was able to keep the basketball on as we had, you know, so I was able to, to bang Here's the thing I don't know about you.

One thing that people really love about the Pit is that they get really emotional about it. I don't feel like you're a big TV crier. Do you get emotional about Pit storylines? Like the story about that kid with the— who had— who was, like, brain dead in season 1, and he— and they did that honor walk for him.

I'm not a TV crier, but my wife is. And one of my favorite things is when it starts to get emotional. And I won't look, but I'll sneak over and then I'll look and she's like, yep, yep, it got me. Like, so, and that happened at least 3 times in the 2 seasons. Like, they, they really kind of go for it a couple of times. But then, you know, you watch these shows and you can't help but think about yourself in these situations or family members who have. I don't think it was probably healthy to watch, to binge watch the show. The other thing is, like, it showed, like, the start of a childbirth. Like, it— there's a couple times you're like, oh, what, what about a heads up? Or the guy with the maggots in the cast. Like, they do a good job of jolting you in the grossness.

I couldn't handle it. Yeah, it's the degloving for me. Anytime there's, like, a degloving where the skin has come off someone, I just can't— I can't handle it. I can't.

So how far— how far are they gonna go with this show? We have— we have 2 episodes left, season 2. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of cards left to play with some of the doctors and the junior doctors and the nurses, stuff like that. But there's some things they haven't done yet. Well, I mean, we don't have like creepy, possibly sexually harassed a patient guy. That's coming, right?

There's, there's things they haven't done yet, but all other medical shows have done, but they haven't done it the way that The Pit does it. So like, you know, every time you see a storyline. We've been hearing from people who are like, "Oh, they did it on this medical show. They did it on that medical show." But that's okay if you recycle things that we've— Obviously, there's only so many medical things that can happen.

So is this a whole genre where people just watch every one of these shows and know every single thing that's happened? Well, yeah, because it's their comf—

Like, people love procedurals. It's a comfort watch for them, right? They love their fire shows, their police shows, and their medical shows. And so, you know what to expect every week, and you come in for the comfort. The Pit alters that a little bit because they don't wrap up every case at the end of the episode. Hour, so you're left hanging. You know, like, these cases extend, uh, the drama between the people extend week to week. So it's a slightly different version of that comfort procedural watch. But I think this show could run for 10 years, honestly. I think it could.

I'm sure HBO Max would love that. I mean, this is— so the question, one of the questions for me is, if it had just been on Sunday nights on HBO at 9 o'clock like they have with some of their signature shows, would it have worked in the same way? Or was it actually like this was the perfect hybrid— Max. Feels HBO, but it's really a Max, and it's just kind of perfect for where we are in 2026?

Well, my understanding is it was part of their, uh, previous effort, which I think they've slightly abandoned, to try to distinguish between what's on Max and what's on HBO. And this was like, this is a throwback network kind of show that we're going to do on Max. But I don't think they're really that invested in that anymore. And I— Um, I think it could have worked just as well on Sunday night HBO, for sure.

It's that HBO is an interesting spot because they're running the Euphoria trailers, and they have this show that now has 3 of the single biggest stars that we have are all in the show. I don't ever— in a million— the only time I can really remember anything like this happening before was Friends, when Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Perry were all headlining movies all at the same time. But I don't even know if they are as famous as the 3 people on this show. This is— I feel like we've broken new ground with this.

Well, that was a different era of television, of course, right? Like TV, yeah, they, you know, Anna Zinzino, they crossed— Yeah, but like, also the difference with Euphoria is that they've been making this show since 2019, so infrequently. I've been rewatching Euphoria season 1 to prepare for season 3, and they're just like, such babies. You know, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi are just, like, absolutely tiny babies on that first season. So, their entire career exploding. It is insane to me that they got this cast back together for this season.

I don't understand it.

I don't know how they pulled it off.

I don't think we want to know how much money was involved. But, like, I— What I do know is that I've heard from a ton of people, including our guy Andy Greenwald, who have been out on previous seasons of Euphoria, who are like, "I'm in for season 3," 'cause it's undeniable. You're not going to watch the show with Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya and Jacob Elordi? Zendaya, who's in the biggest movies that are coming out this year? Of course you're going to watch it.

I mean, you could argue she's the single biggest under-40 female movie star. I think she is. And you could argue Sydney Sweeney's in the top 4.

I mean, she's up there, man. And Jacob Elordi, Oscar-nominated. It's just sort of like, it's wild that all of them are together in a show like that. Yeah, Zendaya, this year for Zendaya is absolutely insane, right? Dune 3, a Spider-Man movie, this Robert Pattinson movie that's, you know, doing more numbers than I think people thought it was going to. And, you know, she's just like the— I think she is— she's the biggest star.

She probably has the highest approval rating of any male or female star. And I think people really like Elordi. I don't think there's a lot of people like, fuck that guy, whereas Sydney Sweeney is the most polarizing male or female actor or actress we probably have.

I, I will say I had a tough time with Elordi just because his character on Euphoria is so tough, but it's been long enough since season 2 that I was just like— that he's done enough other stuff. But I was— yeah, when I'm rewatching, I'm like, oh yeah, Nate. Uh, Nate on Euphoria is a tough watch. So I'll be curious how the Elordi fans who haven't watched Euphoria, how they feel about him on the show.

How many Tell Me Lies seasons have we had since Euphoria, right? Uh, 5?

I don't know.

Yeah, Tell Me Lies like took a lot of the Euphoria playbook, and you know, although it's hard to outdo Euphoria. I don't think you can.

I don't have a great feeling about the season.

I've heard— I've heard from a couple people it's really good.

Um, I, I watched— they sent over like 3 episodes. Oh, you watched? I did watch them.

Yeah. So were you happy or not happy? I thought they were really good.

But again, there's just this like— you're watching these incredible actors, you know, like— but with— but with— as is always the case with Euphoria, you kind of feel grimy watching it. Like, you don't feel great after watching an episode of Euphoria. You feel grimy. I feel Sam Levinson is like one of the most divisive people making television right now. But Zendaya is incredible in it, and that's just the best thing to watch. The whole cast is really good.

So are you watching Imperfect Women on Apple? You stayed with that one, right? No, no.

Should I be? What do you think?

Listen, if you put— if you put actors that I've seen on an Apple box with some sort of somebody died, And I'm probably gonna watch. I just am.

How often are you looking at your iPad? What's the iPad percentage ratio for that show?

Oh my God. I would say 70% on the iPad doing stuff and then 30% looking up. But I think I know what's happening for the most part. My wife likes it. It's catching 3 actresses at strange points in their career where all of them were probably bigger stars 7 years ago, and they all kind of just combined together for this pretty generic crime— I mean, all these shows seem the same. Like, everybody's worried about what AI is going to do for TV shows. It's like, I feel like we're already here. Yeah, it's like, hey, there's a murder! Whoa, let's go backwards! Oh, I wonder if this person did it.

That's the thing you can say about Euphoria is like, yeah, you've never seen a show like AI did not write this. Yeah, no, absolutely.

You know what I enjoyed though was the comeback episode of Your Friends and Neighbors. Okay, I was actually excited to have that one back.

Was it Marsters? Was, was that what did it for you?

You know, Jimmy Mars came back. Yeah, yeah, out of nowhere. He's playing a billionaire. He's playing a brash, confident billionaire, and it did it for you.

And so no looking at the iPad for the Your Friends and Neighbors season 2?

No, I'm like, I'm like 70% watching that one. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. All right. I don't mind that show.

That one's solid. Trying to think if they're— what were the other ones you've been covering on Prestige? Uh, cause some of those, some of them I'm not watching.

Right. Love Story, you were kind of out on at the end, right?

Oh, I, I loved Love Story. I thought the ending didn't work for you. I, I just thought the last 3 episodes could have— Yeah. I thought, uh, I thought the show peaked with the first 4 or 5. Um, I absolutely— I don't think I've talked about it on the podcast. I, I loved how they recreated a lot of the early '90s stuff. And you and Rob talked a lot about, like, they really did take you back with the clothes, the look, the music. They did, they did everything really well. It was like as high-end of a version of a crappy show as you're gonna get, because it was pretty crappy. Yeah, like that. The second to last episode is them just arguing in a kitchen for 50 minutes. An argument nobody overheard.

Yeah, an argument that someone made up and decided it was them. I mean, I thought Sarah Pidgeon, who's the lead actress on that show, was like absolutely phenomenal. I thought she was so good. The other guy was fine. Yeah, he was also there. So he was very handsome. He was okay.

He looked like him, which was really all that mattered. I don't think this show ever really fully decided on how they felt about JFK Jr. Was kind of the flaw of the show. It's like so Is this guy just a moron? Like, what are— walk us through what you want us to think about this guy, because you're kind of making it seem like he's an irredeemable moron, but you don't really want to say it.

Well, I feel like in the final episode they tried to make this like— they tried to really pat themselves on the back by saying, you know, having Constance Zimmer, who played her mom, basically say, all the coverage is about, you know, your brother's talking to her, his sister, your brother. Um, but nobody knew who my daughter was. And so the show's like, "Well, we cared more about Carolyn than we cared about JFK. Aren't we great?" But I just feel like they didn't really— It would've been a much better show if they had a take on him, which they didn't feel like they had. But I think they really created in her an interesting character.

That's what was so weird about it, though. It's like they spent— I thought they really built out an excellent character with her. Yeah. He was also interesting in his own way because he wasn't really good at anything. And it was just clear we were like, I think he was a little older than me. Um, yeah, it was clear he was just going to go into politics and it was like, all right, do that. You try to pass the bar, we get it. You're trying to forge your own way. Oh, here's your stupid George magazine, which was a terrible magazine, by the way. Um, and it was just clear, it's like, he's just going to run for senator and it's going to be fine. Like, he just doesn't want to admit to himself yet that this is how it's going to play out. And then you peel under the other part of this, was like, this is the kind of person who ends up becoming a major person in politics. Like somebody who's clearly like, they just want to ride their bike and hook up with people.

Play flag football. But everybody loved him.

He was beloved. It was like, to me, when Diana died and he died, it was about the same reaction, at least with everybody I knew.

What did you make of them taking us inside of the crash? Like how they handled the whole crash sequence in the finale?

I actually thought it was pretty fair. Um, I thought it could have been more critical on how stupid it was that he flew. Like, really one of the dumbest. I just can't believe he did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to do that at night, and yeah, it didn't really seem like he had the experience, and I just never really understood that one. But I, I think the missed opportunity— I would have, instead of that last, second to last episode where they're just fighting I was so interested in the Kennedy compound. I don't think we could have spent enough time there. I thought that was the single best episode. I loved being around the dinner table when it was— when she created the podcast, basically, going around, asking different people what they thought, uh, just what the compound was like, what they did. I was like, I could have done another hour of it.

Why didn't Ethel Kennedy have a podcast? That's the question.

She should have. She was really good at setting people up.

What did you think? They, they, they cast Donald Logue as Ted Kennedy and then just like never used him to do anything. It was really strange.

So my wife, um, who Love Story was her favorite piece of content that's come out, I think, in the 2020s, ends up watching— there's a show on Tubi that's the lost wedding tapes of JFK Jr. and Carolyn. I don't know if you know about this. No. Yeah. And it's somebody, one of his buddies videotaped the wedding, and it's this whole documentary. So of course my wife immediately goes from that to this and is watching it. And Ted Kennedy was like a big part of the wedding and just gives this really emotional speech at one point. And it's actually worth— if you like Love Story, it's worth watching this documentary. But I didn't feel that impact at all. I always felt like he was like, like the man of the family, and you didn't feel that from the show. I don't know why.

Well, that's what I'm saying. They cast an actor I like and know in that role, and so I'm just wondering if they cut him because it wasn't—

he wasn't good. Maybe his accent was bad.

I mean, he was doing a hard Kennedy accent swing, so maybe—

let's be honest, just fucking Jason Clarke. He's right there. He already did this to Chappaquiddick. He's available for all of these shows. He's probably wrapping up Bird Dog, like, like Murdoch, just go.

What if that's what Jason Clark does the rest of his career, is just Teddy Kennedy?

He was unbelievable. Ted Kennedy. Yeah, I really like that movie. Um, but yeah, I thought— I, I don't know why they punted on Ted. Maybe JFK wasn't that close to him.

I don't know.

Um, also, do we feel like Carolyn— the show makes it seem like she's like, I don't want to like this guy, but there's something about him. And then And there's other takes, and there were definitely takes in the '90s that she—

That she, like, went out to get him.

She was after him. Yeah. She landed him.

I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's definitely the narrative that was prevalent at the time. And then I think the show is sort of like, what if it was— what if the story was a little different than that? So—

The show tried to zag against that. And it was based on a book that was written, I think, for her side of the story. And it felt like that's what we were getting. But I thought it didn't explore JFK, like, was this guy just kind of a dope? And then it didn't explore her, like, how conniving was she with landing this guy?

I think the problem is, like, if she went out, went and, like, hooked up with him sort of against her will, like, she's like, "Oh, I don't want to be part of this world, but there's something about him," then there needed to be something about him. That was more than just, "This guy is extremely handsome." 'Cause she was dating an extremely handsome underwear model, so it's not like she couldn't get extremely handsome somewhere. And so, what is it about him that was so undeniably alluring that Darryl Hannah and everyone else are throwing themselves at him? Is it just the Kennedy, "He reminds us of his dad," sort of aura? And if that's true, then Carolyn is, yeah, more schemy than they decided to make her out inside of that show. So they can't have it both ways.

I think I have an answer. What's that? I think he was just tremendously handsome. Yeah, he sure was. I mean, I knew somebody that was at Brown with him. Yeah, I know somebody who was at Brown with him, and it was— and so obviously love story. Everybody who intersected with them that I knew, they're dining on this for 9, because everybody's got so many questions. And he was just like, look, the dude was incredibly handsome. Undeniable. Every woman loved him immediately. And that's just how it went. And that was what his life was like. They loved him. Women love this guy. And that was it. So, you know, for, for—

so you don't have to have much else going for you if that's how you go through life, I guess.

I don't even know if that's the answer. It was just, that was the appeal, was everybody was like, he— they just said he just was one of those guys. He'd like stop the room when he walked in. And that was it.

Where are you on, uh, Beef Season 2 is coming out soon. How do you feel about that? New cast though, right? Yeah, yeah. Carey Mulligan. I'm in. Oscar Isaac. I'm in. Cailee Spanney, Charles Melton. Yeah.

So we feel good about this TV year so far, it sounds like, because we're barely in April. We've already— I mean, Love Story was a gift. That, that was 2 months of content for us.

Love Story, The Pit, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, I thought was a really successful Thrones endeavor early this year. So, you know, HBO's really kicking ass this year. Are you a DTF, uh, watcher? Are you watching that?

I watched it. It's done, right? Yeah. How do you feel about it? I made the mistake. I watched it early and I binged it.

Oh, okay.

So you're not keeping up with it? And I don't think that was the way to watch it because it was a little— You weren't loving it. A little much to bang out in like 2 nights. I thought I liked it though. I didn't love it, but I liked it. Did you like it?

It's not for me. What was your, what was your favorite show this year? Was it Love Story or what is it? What are my other options? I mean, The Pit, I guess, or whatever you're watching on Apple.

I thought, uh, I thought Love Story tapped into something that I wish happened more. Which is that I don't— I think it was very well done, not that ambitious, and was built to kind of cultivate conversation week to week. And I don't think it's a show that would have succeeded on Netflix if it was a— just dump every episode at once. I don't— I thought part of the appeal of it, and I don't know, like, to me, like, the bigger question, which we've talked about a bunch of times, is why don't people follow this model more of how to do stuff Is it better to just— because I know, and I've talked to people at the different streamers, they're like, well, if it's a binge, people stay with it. If it's week to week, some of the audience will fall off. Maybe they don't stick with it past 4 or 5 weeks. I get it. I just think resonating culturally for that long should— is the ultimate goal of any show. Like, Love Story was huge for FX because it felt like people were talking about it for 7 straight weeks.

Well, it also has a longer-term payoff. So something like The Pit, I think if The Pit were a binge, people would watch it, but I don't think it would've grown the way that it did. You know? And so, like, the long-term investment when you come into season 2, the audience is so much bigger, and it can only, you know, sort of grow from there. So I think it's a riskier move because if the show's really shitty, yeah, people are gonna drop off. But in terms of, like, really getting people to emotionally buy in, to get your wife crying on the couch, like, you want to be there. I mean, I know you guys binged The Pit, but, like, like you want to be there week in, week out and really feel like you know these people and you're spending time with them. And every week you're checking back in with Langdon and Santos and all the rest and how are they doing.

Um, so, well, things like the Ashton Kutcher show that came out that bombed, that was it. Like, that's, that's the case for sticking to the binge model because you have a show like that and it bombs and releasing it every week, every week, yeah, yeah.

Um, and then also, you know, for podcasting, it's better if it's week to week. So think of the podcasters and release your show week to week.

You joke, but that's real thing. Because in the old days it was think pieces, but now it's the podcast cross with the think pieces. Like, there's still— I saw on my Apple News the other day somebody wrote a Carolyn Bessette piece. That, that show's been gone for 12 days. Somebody in like The Atlantic or something who's like, here's my Carolyn Bessette think piece. And it's like, this thing's still alive, going like that. That has to matter. See, the bigger thing to me is, um, how many of these are left. We've done ominous— no, just like real life stories are going backwards with the celebrity story that could do. I, I feel like we're kind of out at this point. O.J. was another great one and we did it fantastic. Um, but in general, I just don't feel like there's any good ones left.

I don't know. I feel like 5 Diana movies.

I mean, how many times have we gone backwards with Princess Diana? We're good. We need to be done with that. Yeah, we need to be done.

We need a break from that.

I would honestly— a Meghan and Harry movie, I would be It's too—

well, they did that on Lifetime, and I think it's too early to do a Meghan and Harry. Like, we need some distance from this stuff, you know?

Or is it too early? Like, if you just can take liberties and go nuts, like, like, we don't know, we don't know what happened in the jet. Like, to have an entire episode of them arguing in the kitchen and having no idea if it didn't happen, that tells me, like, you can, you can do whatever you want.

Yeah, and not get sued by Meghan and Harry.

Oh, true, they are alive. Yeah, who would sue the Love Story people?

I guess the Kennedy family. Yeah, yeah. All right, Joanna, um, here's what I'm looking for from you in the future. I want you to nail a TV show about podcasting. I think only you can do it, Bill Simmons. So give us—

you know what, honestly, it's like Hacking. It's like how there's never been a good show about computer hackers, or like any— even like Sneakers, which we did on the Rewatchables, there's very little hacking in the hacking shows. What about Hackers? Hackers? Well, it's just tough though because you can't keep the podcast topical. True.

Okay, uh, and alternatively, I'll work on that though. Alternatively, a Harry and Meghan movie and/or TV show. No, I don't want—

I just think—

I think somebody just want to watch it.

Yeah, I think, I think that's one of the few ones left. I mean, the Bill, the Bill Clinton one was a, was a big miss. That just, that just didn't They didn't get it. And, um, but there's more.

I liked the Versace one though. I thought that was actually pretty cool.

That was a great one. That was like what, how many years ago? Like 5, 6 years ago? That was excellent.

I think longer than that. You know, it was between O.J. and the Clinton one. And I think, I think Versace is a really good example of one that like, not, it wouldn't occur to any of us to do the Versace case, I think. So when you're sitting here thinking about like, you're thinking about the big ones, but I think the best model to go for is like Like, go for some of the smaller stories that we know less about. You know, like, I think when you give us— O.J. was incredible, and we all knew so much about O.J., and it still taught us things that we didn't know. But Versace, I think, was even— like, I think about Versace more because I knew nothing about that story. So, like, find us a smaller story that you can sort of, uh, teach us everything about. And that's something I would tune in for. That's really good advice.

What's the big nerd culture movie coming this year?

Dune Part 3. Are you, are you excited for Dune Part 3?

Yeah, tepidly. Okay. Very well done, those two movies.

They sold out. The 70mm IMAX screenings sold out within a couple hours. They put them online today. So people are, people are excited. The spice heads are ready.

We've figured out this movie theater thing. Yeah, yeah. They tried to do it 12, 13 years ago with 3D. Make 3D events, and people just don't like wearing 3D glasses. And now they've figured out these IMAX things are now events. Yeah. And they've nailed it. Congratulations to everybody. All right, Joanna Robinson, great to see you as always. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin Wilds and Nathan and Joanna and Gahal and Eduardo as always. Uh, don't forget, new Rewatchables was up Monday night, Eddie and the Cruisers. Um, I think we're running Basic Instinct next week, so that if you want to prepare for next week's rewatchables, that's going to be the one. I am going to be back on this feed late Thursday afternoon, and hopefully I have more clarity on, on the MVP. I'm going to really spend a lot of time thinking about this. Enjoy the middle of the week. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Refund issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt.

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