0:00

And

0:25

welcome back to Manhunting, which

0:27

Waypoint and friends are working through the filmography

0:30

of Michael Mann and examining his themes of

0:33

labor and craft, capitalist

0:35

oppression, and dudes

0:37

rocking. This is

0:39

our first show of 2022, and it's

0:42

our first show since we started

0:44

living in a heat two world.

0:47

Today, as usual, I'm joined by

0:50

my fellow maniacs, Alex

0:52

Navarro and Deal Asena. And today

0:55

we're also joined

0:55

by the Black Dragon

0:58

himself, Jeff Green. Jeff, welcome to the show.

1:00

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm

1:02

super happy to be here. I've been listening to

1:05

Manhunting so far, and you guys

1:07

are

1:08

you're pretty on point. Pretty

1:10

like to be part of that. Praise from Caesar. I

1:13

very on point.

1:16

Is that better? Yes. No, I can take

1:18

criticism. Jeff Green, I'll allow it.

1:21

I have no criticism, no criticism.

1:24

So before we get into that to today's

1:26

main topic, I do have to ask, what

1:29

on earth do y'all make of this weird

1:31

book announcement Michael Mann

1:34

put out for heat two? Because that's what it is. It's a

1:36

book he co-wrote with Meg Gardner.

1:39

And I would I would if I were a betting man,

1:41

I

1:41

would put a bet that mostly

1:44

it is ghostwritten by Meg Gardner

1:46

based on an outline provided by Michael

1:48

Mann. But it apparently covers events both

1:50

before and after the action

1:53

of the movie Heat, which is interesting

1:55

because I didn't really have a lot of questions about what came

1:57

before or after.

1:59

It's a weird way to get your pitch

2:02

to HBO executives. I

2:05

think there's guys they're still mad about luck.

2:07

So, you know, he's got to he's got to take a circuitous.

2:13

How could you forget about luck? I

2:16

have a very good therapist. Would

2:19

you guys fooled for a second? Like I wasn't

2:21

thinking that it actually was going to be a movie. Oh

2:23

yeah. For half a second. Yes. 100 percent

2:26

like and I even know I even

2:28

internalize that like books have trailers

2:30

now and I know what book trailers look

2:33

like. And still for a moment,

2:35

I was like heat to the first.

2:38

I thought it was a prank. Then I thought it was a

2:40

movie trailer. And then

2:42

I saw it was a book promo.

2:45

And

2:48

I I don't know how I felt.

2:50

I still don't know how I feel. I

2:52

think hearing that it is a sequel

2:54

and prequel in a Godfather two style

2:57

thing is like, OK, I'm

2:59

willing to go along for that ride. I

3:02

don't know if it would be better served by being

3:04

a book or a movie. I mean, I have read my

3:06

share of

3:08

Hollywood People's Vanity Book projects.

3:10

I have read an honest to God Gene Hackman

3:12

book for God's sakes. But

3:15

I don't know that this

3:17

is a thing that I want, but

3:19

it is a thing that I will force myself to experience.

3:22

The thing is, dads like books.

3:24

They do. Dads do like books. But

3:27

but there's all the reasons that we like heat.

3:30

Is it because of the words? Like,

3:33

I'm not convinced.

3:35

You know, some of the with Michael Mann in

3:37

general, that's so

3:39

that's actually something like I was

3:42

going to bring up in today's show too, because like

3:44

watching this is kind of crystallized for me. I

3:46

think maybe it's only the insider

3:50

where I think it's mostly a good script holding

3:53

things together, maybe collateral to. But

3:56

like the insider, I think, is a Tony Gilroy

3:58

co-written thing.

3:59

Um, but I don't

4:03

think man has a lot

4:05

of great scenes, but I don't think some very

4:07

good lines. Yeah, very good lines.

4:09

As far as I know, though, like he doesn't have any

4:11

script writing credit for like any episode

4:14

of crime story. Did he write

4:16

any episodes of Miami Vice? I mean,

4:18

we don't how good a writer is this Michael

4:21

Mann guy? I think he co-wrote one episode

4:23

of Miami Vice. Mm hmm.

4:26

Yeah. So like I am, but I'm kind

4:28

of, I'm kind of of a mind with Dia here,

4:31

which is that this has got

4:33

to be a backdoor pitch to

4:35

like getting another TV

4:37

project off the ground showing like, hey, this

4:40

idea still has mileage in it. And there

4:42

is like an appetite for this.

4:45

He also has an

4:48

HBO thing coming, right? Like Tokyo Vice. Tokyo

4:50

Vice. Yes, that is coming this year. So

4:53

I mean, that I'm excited about. Look,

4:56

it could be more than

4:58

he could, you know, and I think this is, this is fitting

5:01

because the thing is like what I didn't realize until I

5:03

saw a crime story is that

5:06

maybe Michael Mann is a guy who feels

5:08

like he just missed the boat on

5:11

prestige TV. And there's always been a

5:13

part of him that's been like, you know,

5:15

if I could have had a long running, but

5:17

like limited episode per season

5:19

series, I'd have killed it. Like

5:22

I like he tried it with luck, but

5:24

like from what I from what I've read

5:26

about that,

5:28

the mistake there is him

5:30

and David Melch

5:32

was like oil and water, which I can totally

5:35

understand because they're both from what I gather,

5:37

like complete control freaks.

5:39

So like that is happening in the background of luck.

5:42

But like I didn't like watching crime story. I

5:44

was like,

5:45

man, Michael Mann in the 80s is

5:48

secretly like thinking he

5:51

sees the future and the future for him he's

5:53

hoping is like HBO,

5:56

like style shows in the late

5:58

90s, early 2000s.

5:59

Unfortunately, he is pitching the future to a network

6:02

that still wants a 22 episode season

6:04

every year and does not necessarily

6:06

understand the concept of a long running

6:08

storyline that

6:10

doesn't have something to do with soap operas, you

6:12

know? Right.

6:15

So, yeah, that's and that's kind of

6:17

what we're all here to talk about, which is

6:19

this. It's a

6:21

it's not a weird side project because this

6:23

was his main project before he like

6:25

really devoted himself fully to

6:27

feature films, but I do think it is like a path not

6:30

taken in man's career. 1986 is

6:32

crime story. And

6:35

that's this is the show he was able to make

6:37

when Miami Vice effectively

6:40

gave him a blank check. And

6:43

he spent that check on a period

6:45

police drama starring

6:47

the relatively unknown

6:49

Dennis Farina was wild thing about

6:52

like note like he had bit parts in a couple of movies before

6:54

this. And then like we're

6:56

just going to pin this entire series

6:58

to this guy. And

7:00

he is playing an obsessed Chicago cop pursuing

7:03

a vicious and ambitious mafia

7:05

lieutenant Ray Luca, played by Anthony

7:08

Denison across the criminal

7:10

landscape of Chicago in Las Vegas

7:12

in the 1950s. I

7:15

think we're going to end up touching on parts

7:17

of the whole series run as part of this conversation

7:20

to give you the broad overview. The series starts out as

7:23

a really tightly serialized Chicago

7:25

crime epic and then it executes a pre-planned

7:28

shift to Las Vegas halfway through season one,

7:30

little more than halfway through season one.

7:33

The show at this point, though, was dogged by weak ratings.

7:36

And so with season two and I gather

7:38

there's also a writer's strike when they were working

7:40

on the second season, which what

7:42

you guys are saying before the show maybe

7:44

shows a little bit in

7:46

the quality of scripts they're filming in that second

7:48

season. But it tries to reinvent

7:51

itself as a bit more of a case

7:53

of the week show than it had been before with maybe some

7:56

wacky Miami Vice side plots happening.

7:59

starts doing goofier and goofier shit, including

8:02

just like Miami Vice, a long excursion

8:05

in Latin America that culminates in a series

8:07

on the Ink Cliff Hanger in which Torello

8:10

and Luca are brawling aboard a crashing

8:12

plane with this last scene going nose

8:14

first into the ocean.

8:16

I don't want to get too far ahead of us here because that

8:18

is going to be a whole section of conversation on

8:21

its own. But yeah, man, this series goes

8:23

places. So if you're talking about

8:25

Crime Story as a series, you're

8:27

kind of talking about three different

8:30

incarnations of the show at

8:32

least.

8:34

But I think the pilot gives you a really

8:36

good taste for what the original creative

8:39

vision for the show is. And

8:41

we're going to get really into the pilot

8:44

for starters because it almost stands alone

8:46

as a

8:47

short, pretty vicious hard-boiled

8:49

cop movie directed by Abel

8:52

Ferraro.

8:53

It opens on a stick-up

8:55

gone laughably wrong in Expressway

8:57

Car Chase from downtown Chicago into the

8:59

burbs. And the emergence of our two

9:02

main protagonists, Detective

9:04

Torello, who was established as an intensely

9:06

driven and kind of scary

9:09

cop in charge of an elite

9:11

major crimes unit that responds to that opening

9:13

robbery, and then Ray Luca, a

9:16

mid-level gangster who masterminded

9:19

that heist, if

9:21

it could be called something that required a mastermind, but someone

9:24

who sort of contracted the heist that

9:27

puts the MCU on his trail.

9:30

The two men share an even more direct connection

9:32

through David Caruso's Johnny O'Donnell,

9:35

who is the prototypical David Caruso

9:37

character. He emerges fully

9:40

formed like a beautiful butterfly as

9:43

a callow shithead

9:45

with way more confidence

9:47

than sense, which that's

9:50

Caruso's career as well. And

9:54

he is a kid-brother type character from Torello's

9:56

old neighborhood. And he has just started

9:58

working for Luca

9:59

as a skilled thief. In short order,

10:02

O'Donnell has carried off a major heist to Luca,

10:04

got enraged at the stingy deal he's

10:07

offered from Luca's mob boss, a slimy

10:09

Joe Bartoli, played by,

10:11

frankly, the greatest actor to ever play

10:13

these characters, John Polito. Perfect.

10:18

He starts carrying out unauthorized heists

10:20

against businesses protected by Chicago Outfit,

10:22

and Torello realizes he's in such deep shit

10:25

that he's gonna get killed. So he tries to save

10:27

him from the outfit and does get the hit

10:29

contract pulled, but in a tragic twist,

10:32

it's too late to save Johnny, who is

10:34

killed by Luca before Luca gets

10:36

word that the contract is canceled.

10:39

That plus the fact Luca ambushes and kills

10:41

one of Torello's detectives, turns Torello's investigation

10:44

into a crusade. They attempt to catch

10:46

him in the act of robbing a department store. Luca

10:48

senses the trap and escapes. His

10:50

Confederates go on with the job. There's a massive

10:52

shootout. At the end, setting

10:55

up the rest of the series, Torello confronts

10:57

Luca at his club and threatens

10:59

to kill him, but he's convinced by his right-hand man,

11:01

old reliable Bill Smitrovich, from

11:04

everything man makes in this period of his career, that

11:07

they have to bring Luca down the right way with

11:10

a detailed investigation that will

11:12

occupy

11:13

the rest of the series. For

11:17

a pilot that has to lay

11:19

down a ton of groundwork, and I'm

11:21

shocked by how much plot

11:23

and character introductions

11:26

crammed into this episode. I'm

11:29

also gonna distract from me

11:31

how much this pilot

11:33

feels like it just runs on pure energy and adrenaline

11:35

from the start. I'm curious

11:38

how it, coming back to it, Jeff,

11:41

how does that opening sequence hit?

11:44

It actually hit really hard for me

11:46

watching it again. Now I watched the show, I think

11:48

unlike you guys, I watched it at the time,

11:51

in real time, was psyched for

11:53

it because of Miami Vice, and

11:55

watched it the night that it aired. And

11:58

by the way, I'm sure you have this fact.

11:59

somewhere, but 30 million people watched

12:02

that episode that night. And

12:04

I did some comparison and let's

12:07

see the lost finale had 24 million

12:09

viewers.

12:13

So the perspective there was

12:15

a shit ton of people watched Crime

12:17

Story. So it really was like man

12:20

at his TV peak,

12:22

I guess, riding high because

12:24

Miami Vice was still peaking itself.

12:28

And so, yeah, I went into that episode at the time.

12:31

Super excited, was not let

12:33

down at all. And all these decades later,

12:36

it's like a great little Abel Ferraro movie, you

12:38

know? Yeah.

12:39

Right. And minus

12:41

profanity and like really gruesome,

12:45

you know, violence or Harvey Keitel

12:47

nudity. But we still get

12:51

the shotgun to the face from.

12:54

Yeah. For

12:56

King of New York. The

12:58

thing that I noticed

13:01

right away was how fucking great David

13:03

Caruso is. I mean, it reminded

13:06

me of like a young De Niro in

13:08

Mean Streets, like just sort of barely

13:11

hinged character. You

13:13

kind of can't take your eyes off. He's incredible

13:15

in this. Like I was really kind of floored

13:17

by just how shocked I was

13:20

at like.

13:21

And he's like not the only good performance in

13:23

this by any stretch. No, it's like he was incredibly

13:26

striking. And it makes you understand

13:28

why there was this David Caruso

13:31

period between the very late 80s and the

13:33

mid 90s. Like why they kept trying

13:35

to make it a thing because there was something

13:37

there. There was a thing. Yeah.

13:40

I think we've Alex, you and I have talked about

13:42

this, but like

13:44

a proof of life is a movie that

13:46

I think is a perfect example of like filmmakers

13:48

understanding Caruso's talents. And

13:51

like leaning into it. But like I think this

13:54

like this, the search of small roles he's getting

13:56

here at the start, I think also show

13:58

him in a really flattering.

13:59

because he is so good at...

14:03

It is, it's tough to put my finger on, but like,

14:06

he's charismatic, but there's this like, unsettling

14:10

quality to like his energy. Um,

14:13

he's all like nervous movement and

14:15

energy and like insincerity, I

14:17

think. It's the thing that like,

14:19

he's that friend you feel like a night

14:21

out with that guy could always go in any

14:24

fucking direction. And that's not a good

14:26

thing you realize with time. No, it's

14:28

like you sucked all the Ska out of

14:30

Danny Elfman and replaced it with pure

14:32

avarice. Like that is, that

14:35

is his energy throughout this. Like he is just

14:37

this incredibly menacing, but very, like I said,

14:39

very charismatic character.

14:41

And

14:42

like, yeah, you don't know what he's gonna do. And you

14:44

know it's gonna end up bad for him, but like,

14:47

it's not one of those things where the foregone

14:49

conclusion makes it less captivating.

14:52

Because you are very, like I was honestly

14:54

hoping that I would get more of him throughout the

14:56

series. And I knew that was not destined to happen,

14:59

but I was like, I was genuinely kind of sad

15:01

when they finally offed him.

15:03

Um, I do, you

15:06

also mentioned, uh, this

15:08

movie sort of lacking the swearing. And I

15:10

do think this is one of the things working against the series

15:12

a little bit. This, this

15:15

series needs some, needs

15:17

some swearing. It needs some parental guidance.

15:20

Yeah, because I think right

15:22

at the start where,

15:24

um,

15:25

apparently like, they, like

15:27

Michael Mann paid Del Shannon to

15:29

rerecord a like, slightly

15:32

modified arrangement of Runaway.

15:35

Uh, that is, is noticeably like punchy.

15:39

Uh, and

15:41

like, ends, that ends up being the theme, the

15:43

theme song for the show. But also it is the

15:46

accompaniment to this opening heist. Um,

15:49

which is just like all action intensity.

15:52

But

15:52

the good and bad live side by side here because,

15:55

you know, it opens with, uh, the

15:57

crooks

15:58

kind of blow it. They're getaway. way driver, John

16:01

Santucci, flees the scene.

16:05

And so it ends up being a hostage situation.

16:07

And we get like Torello arriving like

16:09

the angel of death on this like rainy

16:12

Chicago street, just like head to toe,

16:14

like black hat, black trench

16:17

coat. And basically

16:19

like, you know, we get like,

16:22

I clip this and put it on Twitter as, as, as

16:24

they make the deal, let these guys go.

16:27

Give him a car, you know, ride to the airport and

16:29

everything. As they're getting in the car with their last

16:31

hostages, he sort of goes up to them

16:34

and gives this

16:35

really terrifically delivered threat,

16:38

which is, you know, if

16:40

you hurt any of these people, I'm

16:42

going to find what you love and I'm going

16:44

to kill it.

16:46

And it's an incredible, it's

16:49

incredible like character establishing

16:51

beat. But the thing that's right before it

16:54

sucks, which is when he goes out,

16:56

he's calling back to the criminals when they barricaded

16:59

inside the restaurant and he's like, listen here,

17:01

you dummies. And this

17:03

happens throughout this script where like there's

17:05

moments where like, you know, on

17:07

the original page, there is some

17:10

foul shit

17:11

being written out for what these characters would say to

17:13

each other.

17:15

And it always has to be softened into

17:17

like substitute teacher, like

17:19

strong language in a way that's just consistently

17:23

awful.

17:24

It's bad and it honest to God, it feels

17:26

like it should be overdubbed. Like

17:29

the like the actor should have just said the words

17:31

and then they ADR it later for, you know, the

17:33

TV version because that's that's how

17:35

jarring it comes off.

17:39

Right. He Torello

17:42

uses the word goofs a lot. He calls these

17:44

guys goofs,

17:46

which apparently the Chicago cops love to say

17:48

that. Right. Well,

17:50

it gives him like this kind of homeroom teacher vibe

17:53

for like the entire first season where

17:55

it's just kind of like he's actually just this

17:57

really soft kind of guy who just happens

17:59

to be.

17:59

be a hard ass cop

18:02

than sick what? It

18:05

doesn't feel right. It is, it is,

18:07

and it is worse with him.

18:10

Like it is most noticeable

18:12

with his lines now that you mention it.

18:14

Like,

18:16

and I think maybe it's because his counterpart

18:18

Luca throughout a lot of this,

18:20

the mafiosi in the show always

18:23

make this outward show being like cool, calm and

18:25

collected, that's their like whole brand.

18:28

And so they don't get

18:30

heated in quite that same way. But

18:33

like,

18:34

yeah, it is consistently Farina

18:37

who is getting in people's faces and

18:39

like calling them out and like

18:41

using what should be like

18:44

really vicious, you

18:48

know, epithets against them. And

18:50

each time it has to be like goofball,

18:52

you know, like it's

18:55

got to become that. It's always really

18:58

jarring, which is too bad

19:00

because I think other than that,

19:02

it's a pretty

19:04

great performance. I mean, it should be, right? Like up

19:07

until a few years before this series

19:10

is shot,

19:11

this was Farina's job. Like this

19:14

is the weird thing is Farina like was

19:17

a career detective with the Chicago police

19:19

for like 18 years and like went

19:22

to like an elite detective

19:25

unit as part of that career. And

19:27

so it's also very weird watching this where like

19:34

this show, I think

19:36

pretty much from the start and then escalating

19:38

throughout

19:40

certainly is portraying Torello as like, not

19:43

just a cop on the edge, but like a cop pretty far

19:45

beyond the edge frequently. And

19:48

that's just part of it.

19:50

And you're, and I'm

19:52

always kind of wondering like, to what degree

19:54

it's like Farina just channeling the

19:57

shit he saw him as a part of in his, in

19:59

his.

19:59

career, right? Like to what degree? I

20:02

mean, man has roots in Chicago in this period as

20:04

well. And like the overlap

20:06

between this and thief is huge. So much of

20:08

the series, I'm sitting there, like kind of

20:10

looking at it like, is this basically

20:13

how like all the cops and criminals, Santucci

20:15

is there as well, who were involved in like producing

20:17

this? Is this basically

20:20

how they see the landscape of

20:22

the Chicago underworld in this

20:24

era?

20:26

Well, yeah. And the other thing is that like,

20:29

there's a part in the very beginning, like when he's

20:31

having negotiating with those hostage

20:33

takers where, you know, he kind of goes off on a rant

20:35

about like, you know, I make like, what, 22 a

20:37

year or something, you know, I'm just a pension guy.

20:40

Like, I don't have the ability to just get

20:42

you a million dollars or whatever it is you're asking for.

20:44

And

20:45

it kind of feels like that starts to be

20:47

a mission statement. Like this notion of like,

20:50

you know, I'm this very put upon, basically

20:53

a city worker that, you

20:55

know, is essentially representing the law.

20:58

But on a lot of ways, I am

21:00

not that different from the people that

21:02

are doing these crimes because I am essentially,

21:04

you know, what I'm,

21:07

I am kind of representing the people who are

21:09

allowed to do the fucked up things

21:11

in the background and do, you know, the sort

21:13

of like the, the, the crimes that are accepted

21:16

by society and governments. Whereas

21:18

the criminals are kind of on just, you know, they're just trying

21:20

to get their own piece of it outside the lines.

21:23

But the show never fully

21:26

goes for that. Like it wants to

21:28

represent

21:29

Farina's character as very much like this, like you said,

21:31

like a loose cannon, like someone who's very much on the edge,

21:34

but they never quite go all

21:36

the way in the notion of like,

21:38

how similar is Torello

21:41

to Luca, you know, like they never really kind of find

21:43

a way to meld that idea, which

21:46

I maybe that's just not what they were going for. But it

21:48

felt like at least in this pilot episode, they

21:50

were laying down some groundwork for something

21:53

like that.

21:55

I would totally agree. Yeah, I think that I

21:57

think that that, you know, the they're

21:59

just flip sides of the same guy

22:01

is it's there but it isn't 100%

22:04

developed but Torello you know

22:07

he's really like kind of an asshole

22:09

throughout the whole show like there's

22:11

hardly a person that he doesn't rough up

22:13

in one way or the other like often for barely

22:16

any reason whatsoever I mean he's pushing

22:18

like waiters he pushes valets

22:21

like he doesn't give a shit who he's gonna rough up

22:23

I and what you said about

22:26

him you know channeling

22:28

his real-life experience and

22:29

I often wondered like did the producers

22:32

or anybody on set have to go like dude like

22:35

stop grabbing everybody by the collar you

22:37

don't have to do this all the time in every scene

22:39

well

22:40

one of the series creators like Chuck Adamson

22:43

right he was also a Chicago

22:45

cop and like one of the like he's also

22:47

kind of

22:48

like generating the story ideas and scripts

22:51

for this and like he and man it like

22:54

are there sort of

22:56

writing about like the

22:58

landscape Chicago crime as they understood

23:00

it and so I think it's a really interesting like if

23:03

you compare it to cop shows of the 90s

23:06

and really these shows still exist broadly right

23:08

like they absolutely do yeah

23:11

the what is it blue bloods and

23:13

shit like that yeah

23:16

really sentimental like visions

23:18

of like hyper competent cops who it's

23:20

a hard job etc etc I

23:24

don't know that I'd say this like doesn't

23:26

end up still falling into some place

23:30

you know it's Michael Mann right

23:32

it can't help but romanticize like

23:35

some of what it's doing but

23:37

there's a lot of moments here

23:39

where Farina and his band

23:42

of cops seem

23:45

kind of out of control

23:49

and not just in terms of like police

23:51

misconduct but um I think

23:53

like how often

23:55

in the wire for instance like

23:58

bunk and McNulty just getting shit

24:00

house drunk and then just

24:02

like driving off into the night is

24:04

just like part of their routine. Torello's

24:08

entire unit of like elite

24:10

cops feels to have the same energy,

24:12

right? Like these are guys who are like, oh yeah, the

24:14

rules are for little people. Like they're for rules

24:17

are for other people. We get to

24:19

like get pissed drunk and

24:21

like throw people around. That's

24:24

our do.

24:26

Yeah. I mean, there's that episode where

24:29

they end up in, I think, Iowa. Yes.

24:32

And they're there to pick up

24:34

one of the criminals and like, you know, the town's

24:36

like stoked. They're like, oh, I'm going to give you the key to the city. They

24:39

go to this bar and inside of five minutes,

24:41

they have completely trashed the place.

24:43

Like just gotten into the dumbest bar room

24:46

brawl you've ever seen in your life. Like

24:48

they just clearly do not give a fuck. Right. And

24:50

then they're laughing about it afterwards. Where they run off

24:52

with the mayor's wife or is

24:55

it one of the mayor's wife that happens? Yes.

24:59

But see, I couldn't remember. I'm like, wait, was that

25:01

the time? Because there are so many times where

25:04

they're like just completely

25:06

like, you know,

25:07

like out of control, way

25:10

out of pocket.

25:11

Uh, I think to the point

25:14

of like, so I think

25:16

man does want like, he likes this

25:18

idea of parallels, right? And I think one

25:21

of the things that I was sort of stunned

25:23

at in this is like, we already

25:25

talked about like certain themes get repeated

25:27

throughout man's work, but like as

25:30

a series, crime story is a

25:32

test bed for a bunch of like specific

25:35

beats. There are literal scenes that

25:37

you will see or already have seen

25:40

in other things and we'll see in things coming

25:42

up. I love when we bring

25:44

out the like the magnesium like,

25:46

yeah, torch latch. I'm just

25:48

like, I'm like, Oh yeah, I've seen this scene before.

25:50

He loves this. I

25:52

also, but I just have

25:55

to.

25:56

So how are you going

25:58

to like man only. in Chicago,

26:00

baby. This is a Chicago ass TV

26:03

series. We are going to

26:05

rob the field museum.

26:08

It's like it's like in the town where the thing that they're

26:10

going to rob is Fenway Park because like, man,

26:14

we're going to rob in Boston. Like people know a Dunkin

26:17

Donuts or Fenway Park. It's basically

26:19

got to be one of the other. Yeah.

26:21

So we get the exterior shot of like David

26:24

Cruz have been like figured out how to rob the

26:26

field museum. And then we get

26:28

insert shots of them using a little burn bar

26:31

on a little set to carve in there.

26:36

And that kind of like

26:39

it's sort of retreading this ground, but in a lot

26:41

of ways, like Caruso's

26:45

character ends up maybe

26:47

being

26:49

more like what James Kahn's character is

26:51

in Thief. He's the one who like takes umbrage

26:53

at the fact that like he kind of gets screwed on

26:55

the back end of this deal.

26:57

Luca, I feel like he

27:00

ends up being like

27:03

is a character like that who had the chops

27:05

to be a skilled thief, but just sort of embraces

27:08

the role of management and like ownership

27:11

of other people's labor. That's kind of Luca.

27:14

But the minute that happens, he's

27:17

moving out of opposition to Torello.

27:19

That's not really like what that's not the

27:21

conflict in a lot of ways. It is becoming

27:24

then one where it's not just that they're opposite

27:26

sides of the law.

27:28

Um, the way that like, uh,

27:30

Hannah and Macaulay are in heat

27:32

where like the same, like you can see the same mirrors,

27:35

same drives are like mere like the,

27:38

the, the values of the two men kind of mirror each

27:40

other in a lot of ways here, Torello

27:42

and Luca. Like

27:44

it's a profoundly different, it's

27:46

a profound difference in worldview as well. And

27:49

you can kind of see it when they're

27:51

making that deal with John Polito trying

27:53

to fence the goods from the

27:55

field museum heist

27:57

and he's screwing them on the points. He's screwing

27:59

them.

27:59

on the rate he will pay them for

28:02

the goods. And he

28:05

kind of gets real with Luca

28:08

and tells him this is how it works.

28:10

And if you're smart, you will accept this role.

28:13

You will like, you know,

28:16

you will do business this way.

28:18

And in fact, you'll be more like me

28:20

and like turn these guys into your employees.

28:23

And Luca takes that deal, whereas in thief, this

28:25

exact conversation ends

28:27

in like everybody is getting killed.

28:30

Here, it's like,

28:32

well, what if instead of that, he'd been like, fuck

28:34

yeah, sign me up for the real

28:36

estate deal and the

28:39

citywide lockout of like

28:41

unauthorized heists. Yeah.

28:46

That's kind of what happens here. Yeah, I mean, it's,

28:50

they don't give you a lot of what

28:52

Luca was before the events

28:54

of this take place. So you're kind

28:56

of left to kind of guess at like what his motivations

28:59

are until he just kind of flatly states them, which

29:02

is that he wants to move up. He

29:04

wants to get beyond just doing street scores

29:06

and, you know, kind of petty hood shit.

29:08

And he wants to find his way

29:10

into the real upper echelons

29:13

of organized crime. And,

29:16

you know,

29:17

it's understandable

29:19

in the way that it is portrayed, you know, like

29:21

he sees an opportunity and he takes it. And

29:23

I think having Caruso's character there to

29:26

sort of be the antithesis of that and

29:28

be the sort of person that doesn't want that gives

29:30

you a little bit to kind of work with there

29:33

because really in the pilot, Luca is very much a

29:35

blank slate. Like he is a guy that seems like he wants

29:37

to move up, but beyond that, we don't really know

29:39

his life. We don't know his character that well. Whereas

29:42

with, you know, Torello,

29:44

even

29:45

though they don't show you a lot of what Torello's

29:47

life was, just Dennis Farina's energy

29:50

communicates all of that. Like you understand

29:52

what that guy's vibe is in the first five minutes

29:54

of the episode. And it's just, it's all portrayed

29:57

there. Whereas Luca, you're kind of left for

29:59

the remaining. episodes to flesh that out a

30:01

little bit. And they never fully do, but you

30:03

at least get a better sense of what that character is and what

30:05

drives him. And it turns out what a lot of what drives

30:08

him is just, I want to be the biggest and

30:10

most powerful person. That's it.

30:13

Right. And Torello, you know, never, never

30:16

gives him that kind of satisfaction at all.

30:18

I mean, Torello is always calling him a two bit punk

30:21

all the way up till the end of the series. You

30:23

know, he never gives him that satisfaction, which you

30:25

know, gets to Luca. David

30:28

Abrams does the same thing

30:31

or treats Luca the same way.

30:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think

30:37

there's an interesting element of

30:39

like generational

30:43

turnover here as well. It becomes more of a theme

30:46

as the series goes along, but

30:49

it's also a theme in a lot of like

30:51

movies from this

30:53

period too, right? Which I mean, I guess literally

30:55

in the headlines, similar

30:57

things were happening, right? Like, I mean, you

31:00

have the, what is it? The rise

31:02

of John Gotti in a lot of ways

31:04

is like

31:06

a really violent generational

31:08

turnover and also like

31:10

a different approach to like,

31:13

you know, being this type of character.

31:17

But this is something like the

31:19

show is interested in exploring

31:21

and it's trying to, the ambition

31:23

here is really something. Because I don't think, it wasn't

31:26

until toward the end of this pilot, when

31:28

Manny Weisbord is introduced

31:31

that I was like, oh fuck, like

31:33

he doesn't just want to like make thief, but

31:36

larger as a series. He wants to make the Godfather too,

31:38

but a series.

31:39

Yeah. And

31:42

through that character, I think in places

31:44

he damn near succeeds in

31:46

that he sees like, there

31:49

are guys like Bartolle who

31:52

are

31:54

kind of simple minded

31:56

criminals in a lot of ways, in terms of like what their scheme

31:59

is, like kind of keep. Keeping it together by brute force. Their

32:01

medium talent.

32:03

Yeah. And really, they're like coasting

32:05

on their laurels from like back in the day. And

32:08

then there's kind of like your visionaries or

32:10

faux visionaries like Weisbord who just

32:13

want to be

32:15

American businessmen. They genuinely do.

32:17

And that's what

32:18

Luca wants as well. But that motivation,

32:20

I don't think, comes clear until his like

32:23

apprenticeship under Weisbord begins

32:26

to pick up. But like in the scene with

32:29

Bartoli,

32:32

he's much more in the like

32:34

the henchman mole. Like you don't fully sense

32:37

the extent of his ambitions. In

32:40

part because like he's not showing them.

32:42

Right. And I

32:45

can't figure out like, is

32:47

it a good performance? I

32:50

can never figure out if I genuinely think

32:52

is Luca a good performance? Or is

32:54

it just like a memorable one? Like is it kind of coasting

32:56

by on a smirk in a pompadour? Ah.

33:01

You know, I don't know if I have a firm answer for

33:03

that either. I think there are good scenes

33:05

and there are good moments for the character throughout

33:08

like kind of peppered throughout.

33:09

But I don't know if they ever

33:12

find a way to completely clarify that character,

33:14

both the actor and the writing. Yeah, it's

33:17

it. And yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, I

33:19

think

33:20

I don't think I'm going to hold on

33:22

to Ray Luca or

33:24

Anthony Denison's performance

33:27

in six, eight

33:29

months time. Right. That

33:32

will have faded from memory in a significant

33:34

way where even like Bill

33:36

Smitrovich's performance, like I think

33:38

we'll still like have a lingering like, you know, impression.

33:42

I have a more significant

33:44

impression of both Polly

33:46

and motherfucking Andrew

33:48

Dice Clay. Right. Maybe gives

33:50

his best performance anywhere in this.

33:53

Absolutely. He's

33:55

consistently great for all two seasons. It's

33:58

amazing. You keep waiting for the Andrew Dice Clay.

33:59

Clay thing to come out and it never

34:02

does. He gives a restrained performance

34:04

throughout. But it's interesting

34:06

hearing you guys talk about Luca and the

34:09

underwhelmingness of him because in

34:11

my mind over these decades, he

34:14

was one of the great TV villains. Like

34:16

that's how it was built up in my head from

34:19

having watched it at the time was and

34:21

that clash between Torello and him. But

34:24

on the rewatch, I totally agree

34:26

with you guys. He isn't as well.

34:29

And I was trying

34:29

to figure out for myself why

34:32

it is that I felt that way. I think

34:34

it's strictly

34:37

because in those days, there

34:39

wasn't like a season long villain or

34:41

a two season long villain. That

34:44

thing just kind of didn't exist. So just

34:46

by the nature of what the character

34:48

was, he was memorable to me. But in

34:50

fact, Anthony Denison, I mean, to

34:52

be fair to him, he's not given a lot to work with.

34:55

Like you said, we'd never get much of his

34:57

backstory at all. We don't know why. What

35:00

is making this guy tick? Yeah, like very it

35:02

wasn't until like, I guess midway through season

35:05

one where I was just kind of like had

35:06

more of the impression than

35:08

oh, Ray Luca is just kind of a petulant

35:11

kid. He's

35:14

a kid who's become violet

35:17

out of green. Like, OK. But

35:19

then like, you know, kind of gets a little bit more depth and

35:22

shape to him. But like until

35:24

then, it's very just kind of like, yeah,

35:26

all right.

35:28

I think until they get to Vegas, like

35:30

I just don't think there's a lot to work with there.

35:32

It's very much it's more about his rise than

35:35

him as a person. And then once

35:37

they finally get to Vegas and they can kind of like

35:40

both offer him the red carpet and then

35:42

pull the rug out from under him,

35:44

they are able to kind of get a little bit more

35:46

out of both that performance and that character.

35:48

But even still, like I think I think even at the

35:51

height of Ray Luca's, you know, moments

35:53

in that series, it feels like Denison

35:56

is sort of struggling a little bit to kind of get

35:58

more out of it.

35:59

then maybe like what the show is able to offer

36:02

him.

36:03

It doesn't help that I think he's consistently opposite

36:06

more gifted character actors.

36:09

Yes. So like next to John Polito

36:11

is unfair.

36:13

Yeah, like John Polito, you know,

36:15

Bartoli is a more complicated character in

36:17

a lot of ways and like is given more

36:19

to do. It's seen the scene. So like,

36:22

you know, you get a more competent actor,

36:25

you know, more seasoned actor in a role where

36:27

they have more to do. They're going to do more

36:29

around you.

36:31

Yeah, it's it's kind of like with with Polito's

36:34

performance. And

36:37

like, if you

36:39

haven't watched the series, you don't know if Polito doesn't immediately

36:41

like the image doesn't spring to mind. If

36:43

you've ever seen Miller's Crossing, Polito

36:46

is the guy giving the speech at the start of that. He's playing a

36:48

very similar character, a like

36:51

mobster who is.

36:54

Just just want to take that

36:56

one to

36:57

enjoy the power and privilege, but not necessarily. He's

37:00

more ambitious character in Miller's

37:02

Crossing. He's the guy who like is trying to rise up in the world.

37:05

But like there's kind of a similar underlying sense and

37:09

of this belief that

37:11

this is actually a very structured world

37:14

with clear rules, and then Polito

37:16

brings that to both performances. And with Phil. Like

37:19

in every scene,

37:21

you can sense a mix of like. Genuinely,

37:24

like sort

37:25

of enjoying the idea of being a mentor

37:28

to Luca before he starts to realize like how dangerous Luca

37:30

might be, how

37:32

ambitious he might be. Also being a guy who like. He's

37:36

greedy, but kind of lazy and cowardly, like he like

37:39

he doesn't want to work for the money anymore. He really

37:41

doesn't like it. There's a scene just wants to enjoy it.

37:43

He just wants to buy new cars. The scene in the car where his

37:46

character is like, the

37:48

scene in the car where his delight

37:50

at like

37:52

buying a new convertible. It is such a memorable

37:54

scene. Yeah.

37:56

Yeah. And like nothing Luca can

37:58

do like or is. to do

38:00

can quite match that. And I think also, Santucci

38:04

in his way just has a weird

38:06

like, charisma

38:08

to him that I can't like, Paulie is so

38:11

fucking weird. Santucci is weird. And

38:13

it's weirder by the fact that like,

38:15

by all accounts, this is one of the most skilled

38:17

thieves

38:19

in like, America in the 1940s and like

38:21

in the 1950s into like the 70s. Just a ridiculously like,

38:28

a brilliant thief who

38:31

like, is now also just

38:33

a weird guy. He's just a weird guy. And

38:37

kind of a dumb guy. Yeah, they I mean,

38:39

they go out of their way to say

38:41

over and over, we hear it. And in fact, that ends up

38:43

being called a dummy.

38:46

You know what you know what happens. But

38:49

everyone does. And then there's also Ted Levine as

38:51

well.

38:52

Yeah, Frank Holman. So, yeah,

38:54

so Luke is really surrounded by these incredible

38:56

character actors who are who are playing over

38:59

the top throughout the series.

39:03

Man, Ted Levine is yeah,

39:05

again, such a such a strong character.

39:07

I think maybe this is the another

39:10

aspect of

39:15

I guess what's the way to put it. I feel

39:17

like maybe in different

39:19

era TV, there's more space for for weird

39:21

dudes. But like, they're

39:23

pretty high on their weird dude quotient for

39:25

network TV in the 80s. I

39:29

feel like, you know, now we would like kind of almost

39:31

give them the show. But like, they

39:33

really do kind of have a good portion of

39:35

the show unto themselves as

39:38

is, which like,

39:40

thank God, like they're so incredible whenever

39:43

they're on screen. It's just

39:45

hard to imagine from that era

39:47

of television a show like this where

39:49

it is almost entirely middle aged

39:52

dudes, most of which are not

39:55

hot.

39:56

Like if I'm just being completely honest here

39:58

like I did like that.

39:59

is a handsome guy. There's plenty of handsome

40:02

dudes in the show, but it's like putting

40:04

all those faces at the forefront

40:06

of this big new show. And I'm

40:08

just going to say in that pilot, at least the amount

40:10

of fucking makeup they caked that

40:13

is for you and Bill Smitredich in is

40:15

just like, you could tell someone was uncomfortable

40:18

with having these be the leads of this show. Well,

40:20

it's so funny because you got like a Bill Campbell, you know, who

40:22

could go on to be like the rocketeer. Yeah.

40:26

And he's just like, you know, off back in the,

40:28

you know, he's the young new guy kind

40:30

of deal. Like,

40:31

and it's like, wait, but he's the one that's conventionally

40:34

fuckable. And he doesn't even

40:36

really get any major scenes in this show until

40:38

like halfway through the first season. Not at all.

40:41

Right. But the women always comment on him. They're

40:43

always pointing him out. Oh, he will

40:46

take him. He's the hot one.

40:48

But even there, it's often in a, well,

40:50

he's young and wet behind the ears, right?

40:53

It's more of a, even there, it's

40:55

more of a, is he hot or is he just look more suggestible

40:58

and like he might be fun to break in? Like,

41:01

even there, it's like worldly

41:03

and earthy in a way that I find kind of entertaining

41:06

in the way he's sort of objectified. Yeah,

41:11

you're certainly right that, you know, there's not

41:13

a lot of classic, handsome movie

41:16

star types here. And especially in

41:18

terms of Dennis Frieda, he is kind of handsome, but

41:20

he's also kind of craggy and,

41:23

you know, and a little older than, than you

41:25

would expect for a leading man at

41:27

that time. So they really

41:29

did take a chance in, in

41:31

having him lead the series. Well,

41:34

and I think at times they'll let, they grow less confident

41:36

in it because I think there's an abortive move at

41:38

various points in the series

41:40

to what if

41:42

we turn this into the David Adebrom

41:44

show starring a young, uh,

41:47

Stephen Lang,

41:48

which, all

41:49

right, let's talk about

41:51

David. We have to talk about David. Yeah, we

41:53

do. This character is all over the damn place.

41:57

He's established in this pilot.

41:59

a crusading, everyone

42:02

in this show is crusading for something, right? But

42:04

he is a crusading public defender. He

42:07

has a genuinely fun scene with Torello,

42:10

where Torello just flat out lies on the stand

42:13

to get his statement

42:16

to hold up.

42:18

And,

42:21

like, Abrams is offended by it, and

42:24

Torello sort of takes him aside and is like, you seem like a

42:26

good guy, and I've explained to you, this is

42:28

how the city works. Of course

42:30

I lied. Everyone's going to lie. The

42:32

judge knows I'm lying. All this is fun.

42:36

But

42:37

also this show, we

42:40

talked about before, like,

42:42

is Michael Mann cool? Does Michael Mann

42:45

think he's cool? I think with

42:47

David Abrams, we get a strong

42:49

idea of what Michael Mann's thinks is

42:51

the coolest motherfucker who could

42:53

possibly walk the earth. The

42:56

scene, okay.

42:58

So this comes a little after the character's

43:00

introduction, but the moments when they

43:03

start to get into the aspect

43:05

of Abrams where he is

43:08

hyper-cool,

43:10

like I said, they can't just make him cool.

43:12

He has to be the coolest motherfucker on the planet. He

43:14

has to be down with everyone. Then

43:17

in order to establish, which later on becomes

43:19

a theme, the idea that David Abrams

43:22

is the white guy who gets invited to the cookout,

43:25

they put him in a jazz club with

43:27

Miles Davis, jamming with

43:29

Miles Davis, which is like trimming the hedges

43:32

with an industrial grade flamethrower. Like

43:34

this, he couldn't just be

43:36

a jazz saxophonist. He

43:39

has to be on the stage with fucking

43:41

Miles Davis. I

43:44

was so hoping you were going to bring that up. I

43:46

really was because that scene made me laugh

43:48

out loud on the second viewing. What

43:50

is Miles Davis even doing there? How

43:52

did they get- Nothing, just playing. Right.

43:56

I don't even know how they got him to

43:58

be there. I mean, I think he has like-

43:59

online a dialogue to David Abrams like, you

44:02

know, like, thanks. Thanks.

44:05

Something like a good plane. He doesn't even know. I don't think he says

44:07

anything. I think he nods while he's blowing

44:09

into his trumpet and that is it. Maybe that's

44:11

it. Yeah. Michael, like the thing

44:13

is, Michael Mann is just

44:15

cool enough to like get along

44:18

with all these people who are like

44:20

undeniably cool and they will do things like

44:22

appear on his show or do guest spots. But

44:25

every time they do that, like.

44:28

When he is like.

44:31

Repeatedly throughout this, because I don't know what to do with this

44:33

character at times, they're like, hey, David

44:35

Abrams stopping a public defender and come

44:37

be a mob lawyer. And

44:40

this is a beat that gets repeated. But yeah, I think is

44:42

it here where like

44:44

he sort of rebuffs Luca and he's

44:46

like, no, if you'll excuse me, I feel like I got a

44:48

hot hand tonight and I'm going

44:50

back to the back up there with the

44:52

trio. And

44:54

it's just like.

44:57

It's just I don't I do not know what it is about

44:59

Steve. Like, I don't think Stephen Lang

45:02

is this type of actor. I think that's one of the problems is

45:04

he is a character actor and like him

45:07

trying to be smooth reads as false in a way that

45:09

him playing.

45:11

Unhinged at various points in his

45:13

career as a much older like he becomes

45:16

like Stephen Abrams now, Stephen Lang, if you think about

45:18

now is like

45:20

grizzled, scary marine dude.

45:22

Yes. And

45:25

he's grown that pretty comfortably.

45:28

He shows up in public enemies as

45:30

a wisened gunslinger and quietly

45:33

walks away with that picture.

45:36

But here, the attempt to be like, well, he'll be the

45:38

heartthrob of the cast

45:40

and the attempt to just be like, look how cool he is.

45:43

It just keeps getting more

45:45

and more and more intense.

45:47

It's yeah, it just keeps ramping up like they

45:49

they they bring in Pam Greer as

45:51

a love interest, which I

45:53

will say this Pam Greer's

45:56

character here is way less

45:58

put upon than the character that they give. her in Miami

46:00

Vice. Like she is a much more well rounded

46:02

person here.

46:04

But also it is very clear that like they

46:06

are again, this is all in service of trying

46:08

to make David Abrams the coolest

46:10

motherfucker who has ever lived and had

46:12

a lot of great. The part where he talks her into

46:15

bed, I like had to just like it's

46:18

one of the worst seduction scenes ever

46:20

put on film, but it's literally fascinating.

46:22

Yes, where he just begins. He drops

46:24

his voice like three octaves and

46:27

just starts like

46:29

making out. It's incredible.

46:33

Yeah, man, I don't know. Like I will

46:36

say that it's.

46:39

I think that there are moments with this character

46:41

that are the do kind of work.

46:43

I think some of the stuff involving his dad that

46:46

they get into later, I think there is some some

46:48

some good interplay there and kind of,

46:50

you know, what the way that it kind of breaks

46:52

him down later on, which he does get more unhinged

46:55

as the season as season two, especially

46:57

rolls along.

46:58

But yeah,

46:59

I don't know. Like I said, I

47:01

think that there is a certain degree of coolness,

47:03

self insert to this character

47:06

with it on the man side of things. But

47:09

I do think that Stephen Lang makes

47:11

it interesting, at least. It's like you said, he's

47:13

not naturally this kind of person, this kind

47:16

of character, but he's

47:18

clearly giving it his all in

47:20

a way that I think makes

47:22

it interesting to watch, makes it fun to watch for

47:24

the most part, even as it gets so

47:26

far

47:28

out of any realm of believability

47:30

of a single human being. Like I still

47:32

think he kind of makes it work. Yeah, and it's pretty

47:34

unbelievable from the start that this time around,

47:37

I noticed that it's already like the second

47:39

or third episode when he defends

47:42

or he works with Torello

47:44

in Torello's divorce. And

47:46

this is why he's still a public defender. It's sort of like,

47:49

well, we have to have a lawyer in the scene. Let's

47:51

use David Abrams again. Like they

47:54

can never decide really, you know, whose

47:56

side he's on or,

47:58

you know, he's just too. much,

48:01

there's too much of him every time

48:03

they need a lawyer. That's

48:05

what I think about, even his big signature

48:08

episode, Abrams for the Defense, where

48:11

he is just like,

48:12

you know, he

48:13

is so hyper competent at pointing

48:16

out racialized economic violence

48:18

and just like, you know, it's almost like a mon-

48:20

like one of the cool guy montage of him

48:23

being just this hyper competent public

48:25

lawyer and it's like,

48:27

this feels slimy

48:30

in some ways.

48:33

And again, the episode ends with him

48:35

literally being invited to the cookout.

48:40

That is an episode-

48:42

we'll talk about it in the series, I have

48:45

complicated feelings about that one because I think it's interesting

48:47

but very weird.

48:49

In this- as this

48:52

goes along, like

48:54

so the thing that ends up happening

48:56

is Caruso, in

48:58

his anger at being sort of screwed on the deal,

49:00

goes on this like

49:03

terminal spiral of like,

49:05

well, I'm going to show- I'm going

49:07

to show Bartoli by ripping off his jewelry

49:10

stores.

49:12

And one

49:13

of the things I kind of dig here is this kind

49:15

of like race to figure out

49:19

what to do with this guy. That

49:23

like,

49:24

he's clearly out of control.

49:28

Bartoli basically makes very clear

49:30

that like, Luca's first assignment

49:33

for stepping up in the world and to prove

49:35

his loyalty that he's willing to do what it takes to advance in

49:37

the organization is to kill

49:39

his buddy. You know,

49:42

O'Donnell.

49:43

And Luca

49:45

doesn't hesitate to accept it.

49:50

I think when they actually have the scene where they're

49:52

sort of driving in the car, when

49:55

like Luca is like trying to get it squared

49:57

away, I think that's a really effective

49:59

scene because I think

49:59

I think here, Luca

50:02

is so convincingly disarming in the

50:04

scene where he finally does whack O'Donnell that

50:08

even though I know,

50:10

David Crusoe isn't part of the series. He's gonna get killed

50:12

in this episode. I'm still kinda shocked

50:15

by it when it happens. Luca

50:17

is so good, I think maybe

50:19

this is where he's most convincing throughout the series,

50:22

is somebody who can

50:24

put you at ease when you know you should not

50:27

be,

50:28

and then predictably,

50:30

inevitably, just kill you.

50:33

Yeah, he's like, I

50:35

mean, I think that is the thing that works is

50:37

the sense that he is a hothead, but

50:39

he's not constantly screaming at people. He's not

50:41

constantly yelling

50:44

about all his motivations. There

50:46

is a certain disarming quality to him, like you said.

50:49

But I think

50:51

that, like you said, it was inevitability.

50:53

This is where I was gonna end up. There

50:55

isn't gonna be any more David Crusoe. But I

50:58

think, like you said, the scene plays well

51:00

because the

51:02

actors involved, I think, just managed to pull

51:05

some actual good tension out of it,

51:08

even though you kinda know what's coming.

51:11

And I don't know that there

51:13

is actually a better Luca moment in the series

51:15

than at this point.

51:19

I think it helps that Abel

51:21

Ferrara, he

51:25

seems to have a real gift for shooting Chicago

51:27

at night in this. I'm

51:30

not sure any interior scenes look good at any point

51:32

in this series, but in this pilot,

51:36

the night cityscapes

51:38

are pretty damn dramatic. And

51:41

that scene where Luca

51:44

sort of talks him into going to that warehouse

51:46

near Lower Wacker, it's

51:50

very Goodfellas-esque

51:53

in some ways, as he sort of vanishes

51:55

into his little warehouse and there's sort of the menace

51:57

over the scene. It's hard not

51:59

to think about it.

51:59

about when De Niro was

52:02

trying to get really owed his

52:04

wife to, come on in in

52:06

Goodfellas where it's that similar sense of this

52:09

person who you know and ostensibly

52:11

trust, you realize that just by virtue

52:14

of the world you're in

52:16

might kill you at any time. And Caruso,

52:18

the realization comes too late. Yeah.

52:21

Well, this is also really the closest

52:23

person that Luca kills throughout all

52:25

the two seasons of killing. This is

52:27

his actual friend. Clearly

52:29

Luca has no problem killing anybody, including

52:32

the president of countries, just point

52:34

blank. But

52:37

I think there is some poignancy

52:39

even to this one because it's his

52:42

buddy. The closest you

52:44

get to him doing something this ruthless

52:47

and disgusting is of course when he goes

52:49

after Polly's

52:51

wife in season,

52:53

was that season two? Yeah. No,

52:55

that was towards the end of season one. Towards the end of season one, right?

53:00

And of course in the

53:02

backdrop of this, the MCU, like it kidnaps Bartoli

53:05

to sort of put the scaring him

53:11

to have him pull the contract and he does,

53:13

but it's a great little coda

53:16

to that as he sort of tells Luca, forget

53:18

about the O'Donnell kid. The kid's already dead

53:20

and that die

53:23

is cast.

53:24

And from there we have sort

53:26

of the escalation into their conflict.

53:29

You have the MCU sort of building

53:31

their case against him. You

53:33

have the detective who, I think

53:36

this is the part that's probably the least well laid out

53:39

in this pilot.

53:40

It's implied that one of the detectives

53:42

is already kind of burning out

53:44

and like in that opening

53:46

heist, after everything calms down,

53:49

you see him unloading a shotgun into

53:51

the side of a door because

53:54

he's just frustrated.

53:58

You don't, when that... character

54:00

is just kind of unceremoniously killed while

54:03

while tailing Luca. It's

54:05

this like it's it's supposed

54:07

to be like it's really shocking moment for the squad I don't

54:10

know it didn't land for me. Like it felt like such

54:12

a formulaic

54:14

like plot beat right down

54:16

to Torello visiting the crime scene in

54:18

the pouring rain while Stand

54:21

By Me plays

54:22

where it just felt like

54:24

I don't

54:26

know sometimes like Man's Weaker and Stanks which is

54:28

like

54:30

you know just in terms of the way he architects

54:32

scenes and shows is like you know sometimes

54:34

you just counterfeit an emotional

54:36

beat just if the shot

54:39

and the music is right. Yeah that's

54:41

a really good point because you were just making me

54:43

think about the the

54:45

similar scene well I guess it's not similar I

54:47

was thinking about the the first episode

54:49

of The Shield. Of course there you've

54:52

got a cop killing a cop I guess that's

54:54

what's so shocking there but somehow

54:56

it doesn't really land in this you're

54:58

right

54:59

it just kind of happens like we well

55:01

we have no we don't know who this cop

55:04

is he's getting shot we have no

55:07

no sympathy for him yet

55:09

at this point so it yeah really

55:12

doesn't land. I think that's kind

55:14

of the weakness of the early episodes

55:16

is that they I

55:18

think you kind of get it with Farina's

55:20

character but there really isn't much emotional

55:22

investment in the cop characters early

55:24

on like it's yes

55:27

you understand that Torello is upset and tortured by

55:29

the fact that you know this this kid

55:31

from around the way eventually gets killed by Luca and

55:33

you kind of understand what brings him to that breaking point but

55:36

everyone else on the squad is just kind

55:38

of there for a while yeah

55:40

like even Bill Smitrovich who you can you know I gets

55:43

more to do as time goes on like

55:45

a lot of those guys just feel like they are background

55:47

fodder they are there just to kind of be

55:49

the the big dudes holding shotguns in

55:52

in semi cheap suits and

55:55

it isn't until later like much later when

55:57

they start giving them at least a little bit

55:59

of a window

55:59

into who those guys are. But even

56:02

then, it's always that kind of a remove.

56:04

Yeah, I mean, what is it interesting, like with the pilot, the pilot

56:06

just feels so full and chaotic

56:09

that like, it doesn't feel like there really is room to

56:11

like, Yeah. really develop out these characters.

56:13

So like, I mean, yeah, like it does feel like,

56:16

you know, man knows there needs to be this

56:18

emotional beat. And

56:20

so he's like, well, we just kill the cop and we play Stand By

56:22

Me and Torello be there in the rain, it'll be, it'll work. We

56:25

can, you know, fake it till we make it. But

56:27

just because like, there's no room to put in what's

56:31

necessary to make that scene organically

56:34

work. But like, we need to have

56:36

it because the screenplay rules say we have

56:38

to have it.

56:39

And like a lot of the rest, like

56:41

the earlier episodes all still feel like they're too

56:44

kind of frenetically packed full

56:46

of stuff to really like, let anyone

56:49

have like, like no one gets the episode

56:51

where it's like, oh, this is like, you know, you know,

56:54

Bill Smitrovich gets the episode when it's

56:56

like, Gary Sinise shows up with the wife and the iron

56:58

lung. And then he kind of gets to have room to

57:00

breathe as a character for an entire episode.

57:03

But no one gets those episodes the

57:05

way we kind of have them now and expect them

57:07

now where it's, we're gonna focus on this

57:10

member of the ensemble this week. Yeah,

57:12

one thing that really frustrated me

57:14

watching this time around was that they

57:17

have 22 episodes and

57:20

yet it still feels too fast paced

57:23

for

57:23

what they're doing. Like he's

57:26

running Las Vegas way too soon

57:29

for what they've developed and yet they had 22

57:31

episodes. So what did they do with all

57:33

that time?

57:35

There's like an offhand line toward the end

57:37

of season one where they're like over the last

57:39

two years we've been going after, you

57:41

know, Luca or whatever.

57:43

And

57:44

I think that period is like between 1962 and 1964. It

57:48

is somehow both feels incredibly

57:51

rushed to get there and also like they are

57:53

taking way too much time through

57:55

certain aspects of the story. Like they are just lingering

57:57

in places where there

58:00

is not enough drama to be mined

58:02

from those places. Like specifically, the whole

58:05

is Torello going to get busted for being

58:07

a crooked cop, even though he very clearly is

58:09

not crooked in the way that he is being accused of.

58:12

Like that is like a multi episode arc that probably

58:14

didn't need to be more than two.

58:16

Yeah. Yeah. Like it builds this pivotal

58:19

thing in in season one,

58:21

where it's like this is a this case is the flimsiest

58:23

thing in the history of courtroom dramas. Like he's he's

58:26

going to be fine. I think also

58:28

where

58:29

this stuff really shows up, like where

58:32

the pacing problems and the inability

58:34

to know like how much space or not or how

58:37

much space to grant or take away from a story.

58:41

Here we see one of man's

58:43

few attempts at portraying a marriage. Oh,

58:46

yeah. Yeah. Like

58:49

there are and the thing is, there are

58:52

parts of this that work well. By and

58:54

large, his solution to solving this problem, though, is

58:56

to have the character and quality of that

58:58

marriage change radically scene to

59:00

scene.

59:01

And then eventually

59:03

just implode to

59:05

get it. Sorry. No, no

59:07

place for women. An obsessive tale of

59:09

an Ahab like pursuit

59:12

of a white whale. You got to got to get

59:14

her off the stage. But even in this first episode,

59:17

we open with the, you know, Torello,

59:19

you know, like

59:21

works the streets. He was like violence,

59:24

but he goes home and he's got this

59:26

like strong, sexy marriage. And

59:29

then in the same episode. And

59:31

I think this is by the way, I think this is a beautiful beat.

59:34

He goes, he's late to a cousin's

59:36

reception. And he sees his wife dancing

59:39

with with another man and

59:42

feels this like wave of jealousy.

59:44

And it sends him on a bender. He doesn't even go to the reception.

59:47

And he's out all night

59:48

and he comes home late and his wife

59:51

waiting up for him, I think, or she comes

59:53

in late. But either way, they have this conversation that's

59:55

like a like it's it's

59:58

a blow up in their.

59:59

apartment

1:00:01

and there's a beat like it's a small

1:00:03

thing but it cracked me up is when

1:00:05

he's doing that well who was that man you were all

1:00:07

over and she was like it was your cousin

1:00:10

you know dickhead it's your little cousin and

1:00:13

he just he brings him up short and he's like little

1:00:15

Tommy that was a little cousin

1:00:17

Tommy like just completely stopped

1:00:19

dead as he realizes like this

1:00:23

is absurd this whole thing is absurd

1:00:25

like he has been jealous of probably

1:00:28

like a very like a very young kid

1:00:30

in his family who is she

1:00:32

even says like of course he was what

1:00:34

is it of course he was born at his age you

1:00:37

can show him a picture of like like

1:00:39

like

1:00:41

a what's what is the exact line it's killing

1:00:43

me here it's really good I want

1:00:47

to say it was like a golden

1:00:49

retriever and he would

1:00:52

pitch intent but it's

1:00:54

something like that and like

1:00:57

and they sort of end up like making

1:01:00

up with that scene and kind of laughing the

1:01:02

thing off a little bit you can

1:01:04

sense those cracks are there and there's moments

1:01:07

there are moments throughout where like occasionally

1:01:10

you get a decent portrayal of a

1:01:13

tense but fundamentally like

1:01:16

strong

1:01:19

or at least conceivable marriage

1:01:22

and then there's places where it's like they turn

1:01:24

into puppets that have

1:01:26

to conduct plot beats

1:01:28

just to move the story along

1:01:32

yeah it's weird because in a way

1:01:34

it's kind of shades of the Crockett

1:01:36

thing where it's like you know clearly

1:01:39

the life that that Farina is living is

1:01:41

not conducive to a healthy marriage but

1:01:44

the way they go about disposing

1:01:46

of it eventually with just sort

1:01:48

of the one

1:01:50

the whole bit with the tables should have been

1:01:53

two scenes and somehow spreads across

1:01:55

multiple episodes

1:01:57

and then the whole thing with the miscarriage

1:01:59

and her

1:01:59

deciding that she's going to go get

1:02:02

her own version of Ralph from Heat

1:02:05

for a while and they literally do the TV

1:02:07

scene from Heat where he walks out

1:02:09

with the TV and then kicks it out of his car.

1:02:12

It feels very abrupt. Like they

1:02:14

just at somewhere along the way. So the studio said this marriage

1:02:16

thing is not interesting enough. Jettison it.

1:02:19

And so they do. And then they spend

1:02:21

several episodes trying to find a way to get another

1:02:24

love interest for Dennis Frina but never

1:02:26

quite get there. But

1:02:29

the other thing is like I also wouldn't

1:02:31

be surprised if this was actually built in because

1:02:33

this is a recurring theme with with Michael

1:02:35

Mann. The idea of the complicated

1:02:38

extremely focused men who who

1:02:41

women are only a complicating factor

1:02:43

in their lives which

1:02:45

is a really interesting thing when you consider the

1:02:47

fact that Mann has been happily married for

1:02:49

over 40 years and never divorced. So

1:02:52

either he

1:02:53

is just like something else. Michael

1:02:55

Mann had and I was like wait no he's never had

1:02:57

a divorce. No he's been married

1:02:59

for like 40 years happily by all accounts.

1:03:02

So is he getting some stuff out that is

1:03:04

making his marriage better by proxy

1:03:07

or does he just know a lot of dudes who had a real

1:03:09

shitty time in relationships. Why

1:03:12

not both.

1:03:14

Could be. That's like it is

1:03:17

fucking me up

1:03:19

that like he like all his movies have this

1:03:21

beat. And meanwhile he's a wife

1:03:23

guy or he's a total wife guy. It's interesting

1:03:25

too because like most of the most of it is that the wives

1:03:28

like removing themselves from the situation.

1:03:31

You know like it's like in this it's she

1:03:33

has the miscarriage and she's just like you need to

1:03:35

go away.

1:03:36

And then she never goes back into

1:03:38

the relationship you know kind of from

1:03:41

you know Torello's point of view it's just

1:03:43

she just leaves and then immediately

1:03:45

kind of you know tries to check

1:03:47

back in it doesn't work and then

1:03:50

she's just like no I'm out.

1:03:52

Yeah I do think that scene in the restaurant

1:03:54

which is like the last one they have together and she's

1:03:56

just like when can you come get your clothes. That

1:03:58

is the only part of that. that whole sequence

1:04:01

that I feel like 100% works. Like that

1:04:03

is, yes, this is a clean break. It

1:04:05

is understandable now that these characters are here

1:04:07

and this is not going to be repairable. So,

1:04:10

and I feel like they get a good bit out of that.

1:04:12

I did like her reaction to the vacation though.

1:04:15

Like I got it, I gotta say, I thought that was really

1:04:17

well handled where, you know, oh,

1:04:19

he's like having a tantrum because his

1:04:22

perfect little plan didn't go according to plan. And

1:04:24

she's like just trying to live through it

1:04:26

and he can't. And it's like, you're fucking

1:04:28

it up for me. Stop. And

1:04:31

she's like trying to be a trooper, but she just keeps

1:04:33

making it worse.

1:04:36

And I, but I think that escalates to,

1:04:39

I think literally like two scenes later, she's like, by the way, I've

1:04:41

been having an affair. Yeah. And this guy's- Yeah,

1:04:43

it's not long after that.

1:04:44

And it's like, there's a lot of things that are just sort of

1:04:48

coming thick and fast and there's a plot developments

1:04:50

that also sort of recontextualize what

1:04:53

just happened. And so yeah, it's like, it's

1:04:56

all this point of

1:04:58

like the overall plotting for the series

1:05:01

and the way it's laid out seems tricky and

1:05:04

inconsistent, but kind of makes sense because

1:05:07

I feel like there weren't shows like this.

1:05:10

Like they didn't, did

1:05:12

they know how to make show, like watching

1:05:15

crime story now, I am stunned to the degree

1:05:17

that every episode follows on the next.

1:05:20

Like- Yeah, even like the bucket episodes,

1:05:23

there's still enough of the main plot

1:05:25

thread in there to still feel like there's

1:05:28

connective tissue missing if you don't watch them.

1:05:30

Yeah, I don't know if I can

1:05:32

emphasize enough, like how strange that

1:05:35

was at the time and how exciting it was at

1:05:37

the time. All those to be continued

1:05:39

at the end, that really didn't happen on

1:05:41

any other show other than soap operas, right?

1:05:43

But for nighttime TV to have

1:05:46

a weekly thing like that. And don't

1:05:48

forget, this is like pre-Tivo. So

1:05:50

you kind of had to be there. I mean,

1:05:52

we had VHS tapes and we could program

1:05:55

it for the hour. But if you missed it, you were

1:05:57

fucked. And there was no like online

1:05:59

site.

1:05:59

where you could go catch up on episodes you missed.

1:06:02

So it really was kind of appointment TV. You

1:06:04

really needed to be there to see what was going to happen

1:06:07

between Torello and Luca next.

1:06:09

Well, even TV shows that I think sort of follow

1:06:11

in its footsteps, like you like The

1:06:14

Shield is a show I think I thought about a lot

1:06:16

watching Crime Story.

1:06:17

The Shield

1:06:20

has overarching plots, but like a lot of shows

1:06:22

in that in that vein

1:06:25

still does a number of episodes that almost stand

1:06:27

by themselves. Like the plot advances minutely

1:06:30

along the track, while like the

1:06:32

whole cast is engaged with a major

1:06:35

case that week or a major event.

1:06:38

Crime Story does stuff like that a little

1:06:40

bit, but like

1:06:41

not to the same extent. Like Crime Story, for the most

1:06:43

part, it's like episode after episode. The

1:06:46

recaps themselves are just nuts, where

1:06:48

it's like three minutes long. Because

1:06:50

you have it's like, yeah, it is like because

1:06:53

the web doesn't exist. They got to do their own plot synopsis.

1:06:55

I kept thinking I was watching a clip show.

1:06:58

Yes, because I was watching a clip show. There

1:07:03

was. But also the interesting

1:07:05

thing about the opening is like, you know, we get like, you know, Chicago 1963

1:07:07

and then like we get

1:07:09

all the kind of clips like, you know, like what

1:07:11

happened in the previous episodes. And then it really

1:07:14

kind of lets you off right in like

1:07:16

this, like this almost seamless transition

1:07:18

from the moment

1:07:20

the little recap and goes

1:07:22

right into the first scene of that episode.

1:07:24

And it is like

1:07:26

kind of like right there at the end of like

1:07:28

where it left off, which

1:07:31

is bonkers. But like I'm thinking

1:07:33

about your your your point, Rob, about kind

1:07:36

of how like, you know, shows like the

1:07:38

the came after did the like,

1:07:40

here's our kind of, you know, our plot or bigger

1:07:43

plot movement episodes. And then here's our

1:07:45

kind of monster of the week episodes. And then sometimes

1:07:48

those episodes will have little bits and pieces of just

1:07:50

kind of character development or world development or,

1:07:52

you know, small plot beats. But

1:07:55

this one, it's doing like the crime

1:07:58

of the week with the over.

1:07:59

marking mythology, like, you know, narrative

1:08:02

plot line and all of the like

1:08:04

character we know and world building moving

1:08:06

forward incrementally to the point where

1:08:09

it becomes batshit. Yeah. Like

1:08:11

the episode where they've got a guy quartered

1:08:14

in a standoff with his arsenal

1:08:16

of automatic weapons. And Dennis

1:08:18

Farina keeps being like, you guys

1:08:20

got this. I got to go take

1:08:22

care of the case over in Indiana. That

1:08:25

episode is maybe the most

1:08:27

batshit piece of crime television

1:08:29

I can remember watching in any

1:08:32

kind of recent memory, because it is it

1:08:34

is this incredibly frenetic thing of this guy,

1:08:36

the

1:08:37

guy who plays the police chief on CSI,

1:08:39

I might point out, like this weird squat

1:08:42

character actor, like

1:08:44

going on a weird, you know, crime

1:08:47

spree murder bender. Also nothing. No

1:08:49

reason. Not the first one of those that has happened

1:08:51

in this season either. But so he's

1:08:53

going on this thing and he takes Lorraine

1:08:56

Brocko hostage in an apartment.

1:08:59

And then like you said, halfway through the episode, Dennis Farina is

1:09:01

like, fuck, I got to go. I got to

1:09:03

go to Indiana for a while. That that hostage

1:09:05

situation is going on for two days.

1:09:07

There are people, there are cops that are just sitting

1:09:09

there every 20 minutes or so just

1:09:11

like, all right, time to fire more bullets at this apartment.

1:09:14

Like the staging of that is

1:09:16

complete nonsense.

1:09:20

No, it's really funny because like the the the

1:09:22

you know, after the two parts, you

1:09:24

know, like pilot, it's

1:09:26

the episode three with the

1:09:29

the schizophrenic serial

1:09:31

killer. Oh my God. Just

1:09:34

the worst guy who does the max headroom takeover

1:09:36

of the Chicago station at the year

1:09:39

before that actually happened.

1:09:41

Oh, which is why my mind.

1:09:44

Yeah. Do you not know about this? The the

1:09:46

backs headroom takeover of the Chicago station.

1:09:49

Wait, this actually happened. OK, so, God,

1:09:52

yeah, there was a it was like this broadcast

1:09:55

signal interruption of during those

1:09:57

doctor who in Chicago. Hold

1:10:00

on. It was in like 87 or 88. It was 87. It was funny because

1:10:04

I remember

1:10:04

talking about it with my uncle and he was

1:10:06

like, oh yeah, I was watching Doctor Who when that happened. And I was

1:10:08

just like, why are you fucking kidding me? But

1:10:11

yeah, someone wearing a Max Hedger mask just

1:10:13

got on there and started talking a bunch of

1:10:15

weird stuff. And I think like singing a song

1:10:17

and then just disappeared. And I don't think

1:10:19

they ever actually found out who did it.

1:10:21

Um, yeah, so November 22nd, 1987,

1:10:24

uh, broadcast

1:10:27

two stations were hijacked in

1:10:29

an active broadcast piracy by a video of an unidentified

1:10:31

person wearing a Max Hedger mask and costume accompanied

1:10:33

by distorted audio to corrugated metal panel

1:10:35

swiveling in the background to mimic Max Hedger's geometric

1:10:38

background effect. Oh my God, you're

1:10:40

right. This happened after. Yeah, it happened

1:10:42

after. As soon as this

1:10:44

episode happened, I was like, I got a check and I

1:10:46

was like, nope, it was after weird.

1:10:49

Um, but like this episode was

1:10:51

really unhinged. And I was like, I'm like, I'm making

1:10:53

notes and I'm like, I'm going to talk about this on the episode because

1:10:56

nothing can be possibly more more in hinge than the

1:10:58

guy who shoots up a hair salon

1:11:01

and then electrocutes a sex worker.

1:11:04

And then Dennis Farina goes, ah,

1:11:06

the hair dryers, they look like

1:11:08

spaceships. He's trying to communicate with aliens.

1:11:11

He's going to take over a television network.

1:11:14

What? And

1:11:16

again, somehow not even the most unhinged

1:11:19

of the unhinged character episodes.

1:11:23

Is that the

1:11:25

second, is that their first like episode of the main

1:11:27

run? Yeah, it is the one that comes right after

1:11:29

the pilot.

1:11:32

That one should have stayed in the cam that one, but

1:11:34

you can't because it's all serialized. And

1:11:36

so you just got to take the L where it's

1:11:38

like, well, shit, our A plot sucks, but

1:11:40

here we go. But yeah, like

1:11:43

leaving the standoff to go do

1:11:46

other cop shit in Gary and

1:11:48

then coming back to the standoffs and be like, OK,

1:11:50

let's kill this guy. All right. Let's resume

1:11:53

our shooting bullets at this apartment building.

1:11:56

Like I just it's like, guys, I like it. Are they on

1:11:59

shift?

1:11:59

some other cops come in after 12 hours

1:12:02

and be like, all right, I brought my I brought a fresh

1:12:04

gun. Let's go. And also the brief nod

1:12:06

it has toward like Torello. He knows

1:12:08

the psychology of these guys. He's like, you wait him out.

1:12:11

Like it also feels like the violence is feeding

1:12:13

him. The end of the episode, he's like, all

1:12:15

right, here's the plan. We kill

1:12:17

the fuck out of him. Right. Right.

1:12:21

Had a couple days to think about

1:12:24

it. And I think I have

1:12:26

an understanding of how we're going to

1:12:28

bring the situation to an end. You

1:12:30

guys are going to shoot the shit out of the fraud.

1:12:33

And then I'm going to murder him from behind.

1:12:38

Oh, my God. Just imagine like all

1:12:40

the people who had like businesses in homes

1:12:42

around there. Two days, two days, two days.

1:12:48

Like the cops, like literally on a timer,

1:12:50

the cops just like, well, it's time to let this guy know

1:12:52

we're here and just like unloading. It's

1:12:54

great. Um,

1:12:57

so

1:12:58

the the like culminating action

1:13:00

of the pilot again, like.

1:13:02

The

1:13:06

like. The production

1:13:08

values of this pilot in places are just

1:13:10

like through the roof. I think this department star

1:13:13

shootout is like.

1:13:15

It's like, wow, like I like.

1:13:18

I know I've been to Marshall Fields a million times

1:13:20

growing up around Chicago and everything, it feels

1:13:22

like, yep, that is exactly how it would have looked.

1:13:25

If like a raging gun battle had broken

1:13:27

out at like Carson Piri Scott

1:13:29

or something, you know, growing up. But

1:13:33

the.

1:13:35

You know, the the way to catch him in

1:13:37

the act is, you know,

1:13:40

they figure out he's going to rip off

1:13:42

this this downtown department store as done

1:13:44

that's so so crazy, no

1:13:46

one would try it except Luca.

1:13:50

And Lucas sniffs out that it's

1:13:52

a plot sort of waves

1:13:54

off and a raging

1:13:57

gun battle ensues. And

1:13:59

while.

1:13:59

still features a decent number of stuntmen

1:14:03

unconvincingly clutching their sides and

1:14:05

flinging themselves off the nearest banister.

1:14:08

It's still a pretty spectacular

1:14:10

sequence and ends with

1:14:14

Torello choosing not to execute

1:14:17

Luca. But the episode sort of ends with

1:14:19

Luca also getting a new mentor,

1:14:22

which is Manny Weisberg, basically

1:14:26

a stand-in for Meyer Lansky,

1:14:28

an old

1:14:33

gangster who's moved into

1:14:36

management above management, who's basically

1:14:38

become the finance mastermind for

1:14:41

organized crime across the country. And

1:14:43

he gives, and I think this is the thesis statement, I think this

1:14:47

is how man views Luca.

1:14:50

Weisberg gives this speech where he's

1:14:52

like,

1:14:53

stay off the street.

1:14:54

The street is

1:14:57

for your dumbass criminal

1:14:59

henchmen and everything. You

1:15:01

manage. You don't work effectively.

1:15:04

You just

1:15:05

take the profit from their work. That's

1:15:07

what your mold is. And I think in

1:15:09

the manverse, the man moral universe, I

1:15:12

think that's the person he consistently hates more than anyone,

1:15:15

is the guy who's like,

1:15:18

risk nothing.

1:15:20

Just take the outcome that

1:15:23

the people actually do the work, generate.

1:15:25

And if you're someone who's attracted to that,

1:15:27

because the reason we end up on con side

1:15:30

in thief is that when he's

1:15:32

offered that deal, it

1:15:34

is so morally offensive that

1:15:36

he just

1:15:37

initiates this really destructive confrontation

1:15:40

because he can't even play

1:15:43

along to get out from under. It

1:15:45

is so immediately offensive that he's like,

1:15:48

I will destroy you and destroy my life to

1:15:51

prevent you from getting your hooks into me that way. Luca

1:15:54

hears this and he's like, shit,

1:15:57

that's what I want to be. That's

1:15:59

the dream. Well,

1:16:01

it's also juxtaposed with the

1:16:03

captain from the MCU, whose constant

1:16:06

refrain throughout the series is make it go away

1:16:08

with work.

1:16:09

You know, like his whole thing is like, doesn't

1:16:11

matter what's going wrong in your life. Just do the

1:16:14

work beyond the ground. Do the thing. Don't

1:16:16

think about anything else. And that's what's going to carry

1:16:18

you forward. Whereas why sports all things like, no

1:16:21

extricate yourself from that shit. Are you kidding me? That's

1:16:23

where you die young. That's where you get into

1:16:25

trouble. You get where I am. Or

1:16:28

just the central point where all the money flows.

1:16:31

That's what you want to be.

1:16:32

And you know, whether or not

1:16:34

the people involved in making this show, you know, are

1:16:37

siding with one or the other, I don't know that one

1:16:39

really is that's ever really

1:16:41

clarified.

1:16:43

I will say it is interesting

1:16:45

as time goes on in the series and we get

1:16:47

more with Weissborg.

1:16:50

And maybe this is the time to talk about this more generally.

1:16:53

They move from him kind of being this slightly grandfatherly,

1:16:56

you know, kind of interesting presence that's like, you know,

1:16:58

kind of guiding him to essentially being

1:17:00

Count Dracula of the mob. And

1:17:02

I mean that in the way that not only is

1:17:05

he just menacing and like, you know, getting very

1:17:07

scary in a few places, the soundtrack

1:17:09

literally turns into organs anytime

1:17:11

he appears on screen. And

1:17:14

it is so over the top that you're just you can't

1:17:16

do anything but believe that somewhere fangs

1:17:18

are about to shoot out of his mouth. I

1:17:21

want to tell you about Weissborg, but

1:17:22

we got to tell you about the soundtrack. We have to

1:17:25

like. In my

1:17:27

view and Jeff, you were listening to it

1:17:30

in its in its original context. You're

1:17:32

watching this week to my ears.

1:17:35

It sounds like shit like I'm

1:17:37

watching it and I'm like

1:17:39

the it's it's such a night and day thing

1:17:41

where like you have really dramatic scenes playing

1:17:44

out and then just the most bonkers

1:17:47

score accompanying it that

1:17:49

somehow makes everything feel really

1:17:51

I think Alice you messaged us and

1:17:53

you were like,

1:17:54

these are like

1:17:55

porno beats that they're that they're yeah,

1:17:58

it's also because, you know, what? it now

1:18:00

we're watching at a point where slap bass

1:18:03

in a television score is inextricable

1:18:06

from Seinfeld. Yes. Yes.

1:18:09

Which is really fucking jarring for

1:18:11

this show in particular. Because

1:18:15

we apparently really love slap bass on

1:18:17

this score. It's really an unfortunate

1:18:20

choice because the period music

1:18:22

that's used intermittently and more

1:18:25

so in the first season is great. Yeah.

1:18:28

And every time it and it's often used

1:18:31

when great juxtaposition to

1:18:33

what's happening in the scene. But

1:18:36

for some reason the decision to use

1:18:38

modern instrumentation, especially

1:18:41

in those like super dorky,

1:18:43

like 80s, like da da da moments

1:18:46

are just terrible and

1:18:48

are incredibly dated. Like

1:18:51

I have nothing against Todd Rungren

1:18:53

as a musician in general.

1:18:55

Like he's not my favorite person or anything, but like I got

1:18:57

nothing against the guy. I think we may

1:19:00

have come to this show at a very unfortunate

1:19:02

time, which is to say that home synthesizers

1:19:05

became very affordable at that

1:19:07

point. And a lot of musicians probably just had

1:19:09

them lying around. So,

1:19:12

you know, in a show where you are already

1:19:14

spending like a million an episode for

1:19:16

all this period specific stuff, are

1:19:18

you going to get a live band in there to

1:19:20

do a whole soundtrack or are you going to get Todd

1:19:23

Rungren going doo doo doo doo doo on

1:19:25

his fucking Casio? Well,

1:19:27

and I think again, it was made a different era.

1:19:29

And this is an unfortunate byproduct

1:19:31

of maybe the show being a little bit out of time.

1:19:34

On the one hand, if man is left

1:19:36

to his own devices in this period, he does

1:19:39

have good taste for like what electronic music

1:19:41

should sound like it would like his drawers

1:19:43

would be like, fuck it. Let's what's tangerine dream

1:19:45

up to sure. Surely we can get that. Someone

1:19:47

get Yacht Hammer on the phone. Yeah.

1:19:51

But

1:19:52

you can't do that. And so he ends up with this

1:19:54

like,

1:19:55

horrific soundtrack that

1:19:58

is consistently just

1:19:59

an inappropriate guest in every scene.

1:20:02

Like it is just constantly like- It's amazing

1:20:05

how wrong the tone, like it's almost

1:20:07

on purpose. It feels like it has to be like

1:20:09

he is goofing because there are scenes where

1:20:11

a guy is just walking down a dark hallway and

1:20:14

it sounds like fucking party music. And it's

1:20:16

like, what is happening? But if

1:20:19

it's made a different era, I think he probably

1:20:21

just like shoots this like with a more like cinema

1:20:23

verite type approach

1:20:25

where like there's a lot of scenes where there's musical score and

1:20:28

there doesn't need to be.

1:20:29

Yeah,

1:20:32

right. Throughout watching

1:20:34

both of these seasons, I kept thinking like, God,

1:20:36

if it had just been 10 years later or 20

1:20:38

years later, right? It would have been a 10 episode

1:20:41

season. You would have gotten rid of all

1:20:43

the B plots. You would have had a different soundtrack.

1:20:46

I mean, this could have been amazing.

1:20:49

Like it still kind of is for when

1:20:51

you factor in what they had to deal

1:20:54

with 22 episodes and every other

1:20:56

trope of 80s and 70s TV, what

1:21:00

they were able to accomplish the way

1:21:02

they were able to push the cop genre forward

1:21:04

is still pretty amazing. But just how

1:21:07

much better it would have been,

1:21:09

even if it was made now, it could be amazing.

1:21:12

Yeah, I wanna, I know I've been joking

1:21:14

and goofing a lot. I do wanna say that I think

1:21:16

that there is one, I completely

1:21:18

understand the germ of an idea they had here

1:21:21

and how forward thinking that was for television

1:21:23

at the time. And I think when this show does

1:21:26

hit, the hits are great. Like

1:21:28

it feels like something wholly

1:21:30

different certainly than anything I remember

1:21:33

from 80s television.

1:21:34

But, you know, at the being at the

1:21:36

forefront of something like that and being trying to

1:21:38

push the medium in a way that maybe was not ready

1:21:41

to be pushed, especially from a network

1:21:43

prime time TV angle,

1:21:45

you know, unfortunately they're

1:21:47

brushing up against things that just hinder

1:21:50

the entire experience as the show rolls

1:21:52

along.

1:21:53

Right, go ahead, sorry. No,

1:21:55

I was gonna say, I think I saw like season

1:21:57

two, they put it up against moonlighting.

1:21:59

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

1:22:02

Yeah, it was terrible idea. Yeah,

1:22:06

they moved it from Friday. It was originally right

1:22:08

after Miami Vice, which of course is perfect.

1:22:10

And they moved it. They were too cocky and they

1:22:12

put it up against moonlighting and got slaughtered.

1:22:15

And part of the

1:22:17

discourse at the time was

1:22:20

the problem of having a

1:22:23

continuing narrative against a show like

1:22:25

moonlighting. What

1:22:28

was the jumping on point? That's actually

1:22:30

why they ended up having that clip episode. It

1:22:32

was like to try to get everybody new

1:22:34

up to speed. So there

1:22:37

was a lot of discussion at the time, like, well, what do we do

1:22:39

with this show? How do we get people into

1:22:41

it now? We're halfway through. We have this incredibly

1:22:44

convoluted plot for the time. And

1:22:46

how do we get viewers up to speed?

1:22:49

That is one thing that I think about is like, you know,

1:22:51

watching this, like, you know, we

1:22:53

really don't watch TV the

1:22:55

way we watch TV in the 1986 anymore. Like,

1:22:58

you know, we haven't for a while. And

1:23:01

like, so watching this, you know, like,

1:23:03

you know, I did, I watched some big chunks when

1:23:05

I could fit it in because I'm like, oh, I've

1:23:07

got 44 episodes of television watch. Like,

1:23:10

let's go cramming two years of

1:23:12

a 22, you know, episode season

1:23:14

show into, you

1:23:16

know, a month. When

1:23:19

it is this chaotic and this frenetic and this like

1:23:22

so many moving parts and so many characters like

1:23:24

it is a very different thing.

1:23:27

Like it really like I think about

1:23:29

like, you know, if I watch this, you know, one

1:23:31

episode a week over the span of two

1:23:33

years instead, like, would that

1:23:35

be a very different experience for me?

1:23:38

And would the show land differently even?

1:23:41

What if I had time to process one

1:23:43

episode? Or would the time between episodes make

1:23:46

me go like, what the fuck did I just watch? Actually,

1:23:49

maybe I'm not going to tune in again. Well,

1:23:51

right. I mean, you're like, remember that if if

1:23:54

Tuesday night rolls around and you've never seen

1:23:56

an episode before, and now they're on episode 10,

1:23:59

and you have moonlighting

1:24:01

as an option, which was a

1:24:03

great show, of course. What

1:24:06

are you going to do? You watch the first few minutes of crime

1:24:08

story and you have no idea what's going on.

1:24:11

It was a really hard sell.

1:24:13

Well, and I think even within the show,

1:24:15

like sometimes the connective tissue is really shakily

1:24:17

put together like some like there's

1:24:19

a lot of cuts throughout the series that I'm

1:24:21

like, did we miss a scene? Because it feels like

1:24:23

we just sort of like like a meteor just

1:24:26

landed Like it freeze framed in a weird way.

1:24:28

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:31

Even the clip show, even there, they do something weird

1:24:33

where the clip show has new footage

1:24:35

at the end, right? Like for 38 minutes,

1:24:39

it's like here's clips and

1:24:42

then they move the ball forward

1:24:44

in some really important ways at

1:24:46

the very end of their clip show. It's

1:24:49

a wild decision because like

1:24:51

if you've seen it and you remember all this, you're not watching

1:24:53

all this. But if you skip a clip

1:24:56

show, I just because I remember I remember

1:24:59

this coming up the first time I watched

1:25:01

it when it was finally being like aired on

1:25:05

a cable channel like 15,

1:25:06

20 years ago.

1:25:08

And I remember like they did something like this. So

1:25:10

I knew there's something in the clips episode where if you skip

1:25:13

it, you'll miss stuff. But like what a weird

1:25:15

decision where we are going to dedicate

1:25:17

the entire thing to being a

1:25:19

super cut of Trello

1:25:22

Lucas scenes.

1:25:24

And then at the very end,

1:25:26

major developments are going to unfold

1:25:28

with Lucas relationship with like Bartoli and

1:25:31

the mob. And it's just going to come out of nowhere.

1:25:34

Yeah, I think they just didn't know what to do with

1:25:36

the show. It was this this, you know, fundamental

1:25:39

conflict between the way TV was and

1:25:41

what they were trying to do.

1:25:43

I mean, and this is maybe like why

1:25:46

to an extent, man ends up being completely

1:25:48

devoted to feature films for like

1:25:51

the balance of his career at this point.

1:25:55

But starts making moves back towards

1:25:57

TV as the medium becomes more interesting

1:25:59

to him later.

1:25:59

I don't know. I'm really curious to

1:26:02

see luck because luck also reunites him with

1:26:04

Farina.

1:26:05

And so I'm really

1:26:07

intrigued by... I

1:26:10

had no idea. When luck was airing,

1:26:12

I wasn't as dedicated to man. I really didn't

1:26:14

follow Milch at all. And

1:26:16

now I'm like, that sounds like the most fascinating project

1:26:19

ever. So

1:26:20

I'm looking forward to what we get there. But

1:26:23

yeah, in context, this is

1:26:25

straining at

1:26:27

the edges of its form

1:26:30

in such key ways.

1:26:32

And I think typified by the fact

1:26:34

that

1:26:36

after 15 episodes,

1:26:38

they just pull up stakes

1:26:40

and they leave their setting. Which

1:26:43

I am...

1:26:45

To me, it hits me like a gut punch. Because

1:26:47

one, I'm a Chicago boy. I

1:26:49

love Chicago. I think man

1:26:52

in this period has a really good

1:26:54

sense for the city.

1:26:56

For instance, that episode that's about

1:26:59

race and structural

1:27:02

violence in Chicago, it is

1:27:04

a little preachy.

1:27:05

It's a hammer to the skull,

1:27:07

man. But is it by 1986 standards?

1:27:10

I

1:27:12

just don't know because it

1:27:15

is a shit as an episode of TV that's

1:27:17

like, you know what? Maybe you should kill

1:27:19

your landlord. Maybe that's justice. The

1:27:21

thing is, I think it is a hammer to the skull

1:27:23

even by 1986 standards. But I

1:27:26

think it's actually a lot more... It's a lot

1:27:28

sharper.

1:27:29

And it goes in

1:27:31

directions that we wouldn't

1:27:33

do now and we wouldn't do for

1:27:35

the intervening 20 years.

1:27:38

Right. So the thing is, that episode,

1:27:41

first of all, Bing Rames,

1:27:43

showing up out of left field to

1:27:46

give this really grounded performance as a guy

1:27:48

who just loses it on his

1:27:50

landlord after one thing after

1:27:53

another piles up over the course of this horrible day

1:27:55

in his slum apartment and

1:27:59

gently

1:27:59

kicks the guy's ass and ends

1:28:02

up getting an assault beef for

1:28:04

it. But like everything about it from the

1:28:06

way the family is treated at the ER.

1:28:08

And interestingly enough, it's the.

1:28:12

Like the dynamics are the like

1:28:16

the black nurse is the one who's like more

1:28:18

skeptical of these folks because she's

1:28:20

like inured to it. And it's an

1:28:23

idealistic doctor who

1:28:25

is the one who's like, no, I can I can

1:28:27

be a diligent doctor for everybody

1:28:30

who comes through the door. Damn what the

1:28:32

insurance. Yeah.

1:28:35

But also the thing that hits so hard is

1:28:39

like so their landlord

1:28:41

is this Polish immigrant

1:28:43

who at one point

1:28:46

tries to butter up Pam Greer

1:28:49

by being like, well, you get it

1:28:50

like you're someone who like pulled herself

1:28:53

up and like you understand the value of work and

1:28:55

like what it takes to succeed.

1:28:58

Not like these other people. And the thing

1:29:00

is, like.

1:29:02

If you grew up in Chicago, like you know, that

1:29:04

person like it's like I'm watching it. I'm

1:29:06

like.

1:29:08

I know that guy.

1:29:09

I know a few versions of that guy, but I know

1:29:11

that guy. And like he is a fixture

1:29:14

of Chicago at this point, not as much now, but

1:29:16

like this notion of like.

1:29:20

Kind of the old conservative,

1:29:23

vicious, embittered like Polish

1:29:25

landlord is kind of a fixture

1:29:28

of Chicago at this point. And like it is such

1:29:30

a local specific thing that even though it is a hammer

1:29:32

to the skull,

1:29:33

the way it's presented, I'm also like, shit.

1:29:37

There's a lot of like keen understanding

1:29:40

of time and place here as well. Well,

1:29:41

there's also a framing there of, you know,

1:29:44

this elderly white

1:29:46

immigrant coming to this country and

1:29:48

believing that he should be in a better

1:29:50

position than the people of color

1:29:53

who are, you know, who are citizens

1:29:55

of this country. And

1:29:58

yeah, it is it. I think

1:30:00

that this episode actually has some of the best acting

1:30:03

anywhere in the series between Ving Raims, the

1:30:05

guy who plays the racist Polish landlord is a

1:30:07

spectacular piece of shit. Bill

1:30:10

Smitrovich. Yeah, Bill Smitrovich has a

1:30:12

great bit in this. Like, there's

1:30:14

a lot of good performances in this episode, but

1:30:17

it is one of the few, like, genuine kind of bucket

1:30:19

episodes that is only very

1:30:22

loosely tied into the larger thread of

1:30:24

the plot, and most of that is just getting

1:30:26

more David Abrams in front of people. Whatever

1:30:29

David Abrams is not being a crusading

1:30:32

attorney, the audience should be

1:30:34

asking, where is... Where

1:30:36

is my cool jazz lawyer?

1:30:38

Yeah, and also, I appreciate also the episode

1:30:41

has such a bummer ending. Like, it is

1:30:43

such a

1:30:44

ripping the rug out from under your feet of,

1:30:46

like, we have the whole, like, cookout and the whole neighborhood

1:30:49

coming together, and then, like,

1:30:51

this guy finds a different way to fuck with these people,

1:30:54

and is determined to do so, not

1:30:56

because, like...

1:30:59

Mostly because, like, he's angry at the injustice

1:31:01

that he didn't

1:31:03

get to do this to them, and so he's going to find another

1:31:05

way to push things. And it

1:31:07

ends with, at this point, Ving Raims defending

1:31:10

his wife, like, literally just pops the guy

1:31:12

with, like, a wrench, and he's dead,

1:31:14

and it ends with this arrest,

1:31:17

and he sort of gets the rest. But,

1:31:20

like, yeah, it's such a preachy scene, including

1:31:22

a long Stephen Lang doing his best

1:31:24

Gregory Pack.

1:31:25

It's... And I think

1:31:27

maybe this is to the point Jeff made up

1:31:30

top.

1:31:32

I think there's a version of this episode that's, like, a fucking

1:31:34

Pulitzer winner in the hands of a better, like,

1:31:36

screenwriter, but

1:31:38

we don't have that here, and

1:31:40

so it ends up just being so heavy-handed

1:31:43

and so kind of long-winded.

1:31:45

Yeah.

1:31:46

Yeah. It

1:31:48

takes a long way to get there for

1:31:51

a conclusion that

1:31:53

is extremely abrupt, and I think the abruptness of

1:31:55

it is not necessarily inappropriate, but

1:31:57

I just think that a lot of this episode feels like...

1:31:59

you know what you needs

1:32:02

to happen, like 10 minutes in, and

1:32:05

they spend 40 minutes getting there.

1:32:10

But so that for me is my relationship

1:32:12

with the Chicago period is like, it's all full of sharp

1:32:14

details. And like, the setting is

1:32:16

so well realized. And even

1:32:18

like the broader Chicago

1:32:21

area, right? The fact that a case moves seamlessly

1:32:23

to St. Louis or over into Gary, like,

1:32:26

yep, that's how the region works.

1:32:28

And those are the connections that existed

1:32:31

at the time particularly, where

1:32:34

those local bonds were a little stronger. And

1:32:37

for

1:32:39

me, it always feels like,

1:32:43

for me, like, Crime Story at its best is

1:32:45

the Chicago show.

1:32:47

And every, like, and

1:32:49

I understand it was baked in

1:32:52

that they wanted to do this pivot to Vegas.

1:32:55

But I never felt like

1:32:57

is Vegas as strong a location

1:33:02

for what this series is doing as

1:33:04

Chicago was?

1:33:07

I think it struggles a little bit

1:33:09

to kind of get at the grandeur of Vegas,

1:33:12

that they're kind of gesturing toward the idea that

1:33:14

it is sort of like this, you know, oasis in

1:33:16

the desert, which is the thing that, you know,

1:33:18

like has been explored in mob stuff many times

1:33:20

over, like Casino is one of my favorite movies, and

1:33:22

they hit some similar beats with

1:33:24

that story

1:33:26

that Casino eventually goes on to do. And I think

1:33:28

I'm much more- Well, it's based on the same character, right? Yeah, yeah,

1:33:30

I think so.

1:33:32

And I think the problem

1:33:34

is, at the television scale they're working

1:33:36

at, even the biggest stuff

1:33:38

that they are doing in Vegas feels a little

1:33:41

small time.

1:33:42

Well, it's interesting, because like, you know, I think about

1:33:44

like,

1:33:45

they don't even really know how to shoot Vegas.

1:33:48

No. Like- Yes. The

1:33:50

show is, it's really interesting because like,

1:33:54

it's not a very

1:33:56

artful show, the way it's filmed.

1:33:58

Like, this is not a very artful show. full show. And I think

1:34:01

that works really well for telling

1:34:03

a mob story in Chicago. But

1:34:06

then, like, you know, you get to Vegas and they break out

1:34:08

the fish eye lens and then they mirror it. And

1:34:10

it's just like, I

1:34:12

don't think this is this is working, guys.

1:34:14

You don't quite have the grasp or

1:34:16

the money, you know, or really like,

1:34:18

you know, we really don't have the chops yet to figure out

1:34:21

how to shoot Vegas in the way

1:34:23

it needs to be shot to actually convey that.

1:34:25

Certainly not like in four by three

1:34:28

on a television. Do you think this

1:34:30

is one of those cases where it becomes so just like

1:34:32

easy as shit in digital land? Because that's

1:34:34

that's always been man's like argument for why he

1:34:36

just embraced digital. I think so. And it was really

1:34:39

interesting because, like, you know, one of the things you know, you'll

1:34:41

remember my initial complaint with thief

1:34:43

was didn't really feel like there

1:34:45

are times when it felt like Chicago, but it really didn't

1:34:47

have a kind of a sense of being grounded

1:34:50

in Chicago.

1:34:51

And crime story

1:34:53

fucking nails it right off from the bat.

1:34:56

It's like, yeah, like we

1:34:58

are in Chicago. This feels like Chicago.

1:35:01

There are all these like, you know, minute details and

1:35:03

the, you know, the shot set

1:35:05

ups work,

1:35:07

you know, because we're not doing horrible

1:35:09

digital color grading for one. And

1:35:11

also, you know, this is, you know,

1:35:13

you could portray Chicago in just kind

1:35:16

of very, you know, workman

1:35:18

like cinematography. It works like.

1:35:21

But then you go to Vegas and it's just like we're

1:35:23

still shooting. We're shooting Vegas the way we were

1:35:25

shooting Chicago,

1:35:27

except now the light values are higher

1:35:31

and we had to add in a wide

1:35:33

angle lens.

1:35:36

And it doesn't really work.

1:35:38

I feel like the brief for

1:35:40

the show does kind of work still, at least

1:35:42

in that first season where, like, they're

1:35:45

still interested in.

1:35:48

I guess in the same way, like everyone

1:35:50

talks about the wire is like a show that has

1:35:52

the sociological bent. I think crime

1:35:54

story does as well, like most overtly

1:35:56

in the episode about like the landlord and ship, but like

1:35:59

throughout.

1:35:59

this idea of Chicago having its politics,

1:36:03

its like regions. I think they're doing

1:36:05

similar work in Vegas, where

1:36:08

it's like, where does power reside in Vegas?

1:36:10

Like, what does this expansion

1:36:13

look like? Who are the people that would need

1:36:15

to be sort of brought to their knees

1:36:17

for the mob to pull this off?

1:36:20

I think it's still doing that work. I think another thing that's hurting

1:36:22

it though is

1:36:26

Vegas, I think particularly maybe in this era,

1:36:28

more than like current Vegas.

1:36:31

So much of it is also a series of like,

1:36:33

what are called like unplaces, where

1:36:35

it's like there's either, there's either the big recognizable casinos,

1:36:39

or then Vegas

1:36:41

is kind of this like sprawl that just services

1:36:44

those casinos. And there's like not

1:36:46

a lot of Chicago's a place of neighborhoods,

1:36:48

a place of like really distinctive locales. I

1:36:51

don't know, it feels like

1:36:53

with Vegas, they're constantly struggling between you either

1:36:55

have these really iconic casinos and you

1:36:58

will see the signage all the fucking time.

1:37:00

Or

1:37:00

it's basically stuff that like a serious place

1:37:03

in the fields like VFW halls,

1:37:05

right? Or in case literally

1:37:07

like a union meeting hall.

1:37:09

Yeah.

1:37:10

Right. It's not a driving city, right?

1:37:12

It's not a car town. And

1:37:16

so much of the early season is

1:37:18

the look of Torello's, you

1:37:21

know, 57 Chrysler and Luca's Coupe

1:37:23

de Ville. Those are

1:37:25

amazing scenes and they're mostly shot

1:37:27

at night and in the dark. So Vegas

1:37:29

just really kind of doesn't work for

1:37:31

the aesthetic of, of the, at least

1:37:34

of the early season.

1:37:37

In terms of the tenor,

1:37:40

how does it, how does it work for

1:37:43

y'all? Because like,

1:37:45

like

1:37:46

Vegas, by season two, the

1:37:48

show is kind of off the rails. Yes.

1:37:51

But even, but the pivot to Vegas

1:37:53

also still marks some pretty profound

1:37:56

shifts for the characters. And I'm curious, like once

1:37:59

it makes that leap.

1:37:59

after after Luca

1:38:02

blows his literally blows his way out of town by

1:38:04

like murdering every single like mob

1:38:07

associate he has left the city and

1:38:09

goes to Vegas. Like, I'm curious where

1:38:13

you guys end up

1:38:15

landing on the pivot. Like,

1:38:17

do you think it like do you misguided

1:38:19

from the start to go to Vegas and like tear

1:38:21

up a season's worth of

1:38:23

groundwork line?

1:38:25

I don't think it was a mistake.

1:38:28

I just don't think it should have been part of season

1:38:30

one.

1:38:31

You know, it's like, yeah, there

1:38:34

is a there's a good idea here,

1:38:36

which is to say that that, you know, the natural

1:38:38

progression of Luca is that he is moved

1:38:41

even beyond the confines of where

1:38:43

of the city that brought him, you

1:38:45

know, into power.

1:38:47

And he wants to go where the real action is,

1:38:49

which is where they are trying to legitimize their businesses in

1:38:51

Vegas. But

1:38:54

the progression they have to do with Luca

1:38:56

over the course of what essentially amounts to like six

1:38:58

or seven episodes. It's

1:39:01

it's not enough time. Like they did. They

1:39:04

have to get him to the place

1:39:06

of unraveling

1:39:07

in such a short window and

1:39:10

get it basically skip over huge chunks of him

1:39:12

building his empire out there. So

1:39:15

we get some good scenes throughout that. But

1:39:17

the overall story feels like it is just majorly

1:39:20

condensed. So I have a thought

1:39:22

about this because this is, you know, thinking like

1:39:25

about now we have

1:39:27

television. It has done the big, you

1:39:29

know, oh, we transplanted the show from one city

1:39:32

to another. You know, at the

1:39:34

time, we really hadn't had that. But

1:39:36

now we would do it. We would say, OK, at

1:39:39

the end of the season, that's

1:39:41

when they leave. And then there's this,

1:39:43

you know, the gap between seasons is when

1:39:45

all that stuff happens. And then we pick

1:39:48

up, you know, and they're all in place ready

1:39:50

to go in season two in the new location.

1:39:53

But like, you

1:39:55

know, so I was thinking, I'm like, what? What

1:39:57

is the logic behind this? I'm like, is it?

1:39:59

that people had not yet

1:40:02

understood that like,

1:40:04

you know, we could do this and that like

1:40:06

they felt like they needed narrative

1:40:08

connective tissue between the seasons

1:40:11

almost.

1:40:12

And like, this was like the most they could

1:40:14

afford it and also like, you know,

1:40:16

bake into this transition.

1:40:18

I don't know, but like watching it, like it

1:40:20

was really fascinating to me because we

1:40:23

just don't do this anymore.

1:40:27

No. And like, I don't think, I can't think of like,

1:40:29

when we've done this after