‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2 Premiere and ‘Lanterns’ Episode 3. Plus, ‘East of Eden’ Trailer.

Key takeaways

• Tom Hardy has quietly joined the rap group Czarface (Inspectah Deck, 7L, Esoteric) under the name Frankie Pulitzer, performing in an MF Doom-style mask. Greenwald discovered mid-episode that the last 20 seconds of the Czarface track "Dr. Yorgo in the Land of Acid 7.0" samples his own voice talking about the mixtape era, seemingly lifted from this podcast. He granted full, unconditional clearance while joking that Inspectah Deck might still call asking for points. Separately, Hardy was reportedly pushed off "Mobland" over on-set behavior, yet the show already has a Season 3 renewal, and Ryan says he may jump back in.
• Netflix has a new "Dungeons & Dragons" live-action series, "Ravenloft," in the works from screenwriter John August and director Alfonso Cuaron, his first Netflix project since "Roma," built around the origin of the vampire Dark Lord Strahd von Zarovich. The earlier D&D series from Drew Crevello and Shawn Levy is dead. Greenwald defends the idea as a way for a major filmmaker to work in open-world fantasy (and open-world money); Ryan treats the "prestige fantasy" logline as a bad omen.
• The full "East of Eden" trailer dropped for Zoe Kazan's seven-episode Netflix adaptation (October 1), which recenters Steinbeck's novel on Cathy, played by Florence Pugh, rather than the Trask brothers. Cast includes Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, and Kate Winslet's son Joe Anders. Ryan worries casual viewers won't follow the story from the marketing, but both argue an adaptation should reinterpret its source rather than just reflect it—Kazan's choice to interrogate Cathy is what justifies the remake. Zoe Kazan's grandfather Elia directed the 1955 James Dean version.
• "The Gentlemen" Season 2 is entertaining but overstuffed, opening with a 65-minute episode. The hosts frame Guy Ritchie as a lifestyle brand (whiskey, cigars, posh-country aesthetic) who still cranks out a genre movie or two a year while running this show with near-total control. Season 2 piles on a pheasant hunt, a Botticelli auction, a motorcycle chase, Lake Como, and a digital tiger. Daniel Ings, Hugh Bonneville, and a Tarantino-style reclamation turn from Vinnie Jones are the highlights; Ray Winstone reportedly asked to shoot his scenes from a steam bath.
• Greenwald, speaking from inside the industry, says executives are genuinely mandating shorter runtimes and earlier writing starts, but shows that build their own momentum (cast on hold, stages built, VFX houses booked) keep swelling anyway. He likens it to CDs tempting bands to overfill albums, and to the tight "30 Rock" giving way to looser "Kimmy Schmidt" episodes. Ritchie's flat-affect, exposition-heavy dialogue happens to suit a platform built for half-watching on a phone.
• "Lanterns" Episode 3, "Outcast," written by Vanessa Baden Kelly, fills in John Stewart's Nebraska childhood and retroactively reframes Hal Jordan's hostility and Stewart's family history in a Lost-like way. The show swaps a "blue space god" Guardian for a Laura Linney character interviewing Stewart in a shopping mall, a move both hosts loved and compared to "The Leftovers." Greenwald calls the style "TV in translation," where comic-book beats get compressed almost like panels, sometimes stilted, sometimes thrilling, and the episode runs straight at race, America, and politics. Ryan questions how long the constant reframe device can stay sustainable.

Notable moments

• Cold open: "He doesn't need a protege, it's Andy Greenwald," as Ryan riffs on Maria Bartiromo leaving Fox News.
• Greenwald hearing his own sampled voice on the Czarface record: "What the fuck, man. What did they sample me on this record?" followed by "there is no safe word, brother."
• The "Ravenloft" logline read aloud, with Ryan comparing the news to the "end of democracy" newspaper prop in "Lioness."
• Greenwald's Little League memory of overhearing a coach say "my guy can hit cleanup, he hits line drives," which he ranked as the coolest thing he'd ever heard until the Czarface sample.
• The runaway bit about Taylor Sheridan launching a "world of Lioness" tabletop RPG: "Roll to see how many women are in the bathtub with you."
• A "Gentlemen" line staged as a punchline: "He bought me a striped lion for my birthday." "You mean a tiger?" "Whatever."
• Greenwald describing Damon Lindelof running a writers room like conducting an orchestra, hearing "the music of weekly television" better than almost anyone.
• Recommendation corner: Ashley Kahn's "Days of Miracle and Wonder" on Paul Simon and "Graceland" (Simon got the source cassette while driving to Montauk to build a house for then-wife Carrie Fisher), Rudolph Wurlitzer's novel "Slow Fade," Lucius Shepard's "Life During Wartime," and the new Sweeping Promises album "You Say I Romanticize" on Sub Pop.

Time saved: 1 hour, 5 minutes.