The H&H Podcast

A reader offered to pay Rob and I to review two movies: Zulu (1964), and They Live (1988), and here we take him up on it. Apparently, both of these films have cult followings among far-right types. I happened to like Zulu . I’ve always enjoyed reading military history, and seeing how a siege works in practice, or at least a portrayal of it, is always a satisfying experience. The film was based on...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me to talk about the film Civil War. We both have already posted (spoiler-filled) reviews. I really didn’t like it , while he gives the movie a kind of lukewarm endorsement. The greatest weakness is clearly its lack of explanation of how the US got to the point where Americans were killing each other. Th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com The Sydney Sweeney saga continues. Rob joins me on the podcast to talk about her new film Immaculate , which I reviewed on X here. The conversation begins by Rob informing me that he thinks Sydney Sweeney is mid, and this leads to a heated debate about her appeal, which involves ranking various actresses and model...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me to talk about The Curse, Season 1. Warning: spoilers in the show notes and also in the discussion. I highly recommend watching first, because it’s very good. The first nine episodes were some of the most compelling TV I’ve ever seen. I tend not to like the premise of white liberals being hypocrites. I...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com In previous discussions on rewatching Breaking Bad, I’ve often talked about how our minds play tricks on us. Going over the final two seasons, I was shocked by how much I had whitewashed Walter White’s character. I remember him being a somewhat complex figure near the end, when in reality he was a kind of cartoon...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me on the podcast to talk about what it takes to become a writer, “public intellectual,” or however one wants to describe what we do. This conversation can serve as a guide for those who might try to follow a similar path. But even if you’re not going to be writing for a living, I think there’s still a l...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me to talk about our experiences growing up poor, or poorish, with a focus on what race relations were like. For some context, I’m 38 and spent my childhood in one of the less nice suburbs of Chicago, while he’s 34 and was raised in rural California. Both of us mostly hung out around people who didn’t en...

Chris joins me to go over Breaking Bad, Season 3, and the first few episodes of Season 4. I had gotten to Episode 4 of Season 4, while he had only gotten to Episode 2 of that season, so there was some confusion on this point, for which we apologize. You can listen here or on your podcast app, or watch the video below. There are spoilers in the episode and the rest of these notes. Once again, I’m b...

Rob joins me to talk about the last season of The Leftovers . For previous discussions, see here and here. We’ve changed the name of our show to The H&H Podcast. I had come to dislike the previous “dissident” kind of theme, which doesn’t really reflect the way I see the world anymore, nor is it much related to what the show actually is. We have basically been over most of the topics discussed in t...

Rob joins me for a discussion of The Leftovers , up to the end of Season 3, Episode 3. If you’re following along, there will be spoilers based on how far we have gone, as there will be in the rest of these show notes. See here for Season 1. We both think Season 2 was quite compelling, but the show has really declined as time has gone on. There’s a tension in that this is clearly a world where the...

Rob Henderson joins me to discuss Season 1 of The Leftovers , an HBO series that ran for three seasons between 2014-2017. Our conversation revolves around two main themes. First, whether this is a Christian show, or maybe as Christian a show as you can expect from HBO. We discuss subtle pro-life propaganda, and how it portrays family life. Second, we connect the plot of The Leftovers to what happe...

Chris Nicholson joins me to talk about Breaking Bad, Seasons 1 and 2, which we both recently rewatched for the first time in over a decade. The entire experience helped demonstrate to us the fallibility of memory. It’s not like this was a forgettable series. Breaking Bad was among the most memorable shows that either of us had ever seen. Yet after a decade, while we remembered major developments l...

I first heard of the movie Blackboard Jungle while reading Derek Thompson’s Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction . The film is most remembered today for opening with the song Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, which set off the rock and roll revolution and everything that came after it. Blackboard Jungle is a story mostly told through the perspective of an...

I’ve posted a two part review of Barbie on Twitter, and a review of Oppenheimer. As I explain in the Oppenheimer review, it feels wrong to pair them, given the transcendent importance of that film and the silliness of its “rival.” That being said, Rob and I have been thinking about both, and we’re here to entertain you, so we’re discussing them together. My Oppenheimer review nonetheless makes it...

Rob Henderson joins me to discuss Season 1 of Yellowstone. I had only heard about the show when I saw a controversy blow up on Twitter where Matt Walsh was attacking boomers for liking it while denouncing the series as woke propaganda. Rob uses a phrase that I love to describe the series: “profoundly unsophisticated.” Every character tells you exactly what they’re thinking or what they’re planning...

Rob joins me to wrap up Succession (spoilers below). We both sort of predicted Tom’s triumph, as did many other people. The ultimate lapdog ends up with the company, his marriage, and a pregnant wife. I bring up how Tom’s career and personal life remind me of the male cuttlefish that disguises itself as a female, and therefore non-threatening, in order to find mating opportunities. There’s an equi...

Rob joins me to talk about Succession, through the penultimate episode of the series. There are spoilers below, and throughout our conversation. We discuss Ross Douthat’s recent piece on the series, and where I agree and disagree with him. We almost have inverse views on the lessons of the show, where Douthat says public opinion has been written out of it, while I think that the trend has been for...

****NOTE: SPOILERS BELOW**** Rob Henderson joins me once again to talk about Succession, S4: Ep 2-4. Of course, our conversation revolves around the shocking death of Logan. I really appreciated how the episode gave us a realistic perspective on what happens when someone dies. It’s not always dramatic, or foreshadowed all that much. We usually don’t get to see the moment they grab their chest and...

Rob joins me to discuss Succession, Season 4: Episode 1. Click here for our previous conversation about the first three seasons of the show. One thing I like about the show is how it straddles differences in class, aesthetics, and politics. The producers are really walking a tightrope, and it’s very easy to make a show like this too preachy and on-the-nose, or what the kids call “cringe.” The seri...

Rob Henderson and Marc Andreessen join me to discuss the Deadwood: The Movie (2019), along with our thoughts about the series more generally. We converge on the idea that the main protagonists of the show, that is, Swearengen, Bullock, and Hearst, represent three eras of civilization, with each of the first two leading to the next one. Marc sees the Hearst character, who apparently has little in c...

Rob Henderson joins me to talk about Season 3 of Deadwood. Rob and I decided to not do any research on the real life story of Deadwood or the making of the series until we finished all three seasons and the movie. So here we debate whether the Season 3 finale was meant to be the end, or there were loose threads that were meant to be picked up in Season 4. I bring up the question of whether we shou...

Rob is back to talk about Deadwood, this time through the end of Season 2. We discuss Al’s development, comparing it to that of Tolliver. We also spend a strange amount of time on whether white actors can still say the N-Word, a debate that we do not settle here. Rob and I also discuss the show evolving from one about personalities to a political thriller. One thing we both love about Deadwood is...

Rob Henderson joins me to talk about Deadwood. Our conversation covers all of Season 1, and Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2. I enjoyed discussing what makes Al Swearengen an anti-hero and whether he or Bullock is the main character of the show. The golden age of TV was really the golden age of anti-heroes, each show centering around a charismatic figure, and both Rob and I agree that Deadwood is among...

This Christmas Eve, I’m giving my readers the gift of a very special podcast. Marc Andreessen and Rob Henderson join me to talk about The Shield, which ran on FX from 2002 to 2008. We debate whether we are supposed to root for the Strike Team or not, with Rob saying no, and Marc and me strongly disagreeing. Building on our discussions on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Marc gives his Nietzschea...

Rob is back to talk about the last episode of Season 2 of The White Lotus. We agree that one of the main lessons of the series has been a general pessimism towards monogamy. The question of whether healthy and fulfilling marriages are even possible is still an open question, perhaps to be taken up in Season 3. Near the end, we agree that Cameron and Daphne are the most complex and interesting char...