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The Playlist

Home to The Playlist Podcast Network and all its affiliated shows, including The Playlist Podcast, The Discourse, Be Reel, The Fourth Wall, and more. The Playlist is the obsessive's guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, and more.

  1. Jun 30

    ‘The Agency’ Season 2: Jeffrey Wright & John Magaro Talk Spycraft, ‘The Batman: Part II,’ ‘Presumed Innocent’ Season 2 & More [Bingeworthy Podcast]

    “The Agency” approaches espionage less as a series of action beats and more as a study in information, perception, and control. The show is at its absolute best when it leans into that tension, allowing seemingly ordinary conversations to simmer with unease while drawing on its wealth of densely fleshed-out characters, each carrying their own agendas, vulnerabilities, and secrets. Conversations are rarely straightforward, motives are constantly in question, and even routine interactions can reshape the balance of power inside the CIA. In Season 2, the Paramount+ with Showtime drama deepens those tensions, following agents and analysts as personal loyalties, institutional pressures, and a growing sense of distrust begin to collide. But this time around the action and pacing is increasing by the second. Based on the acclaimed French series “Le Bureau des Légendes,” “The Agency” follows Michael Fassbender as Martian, a CIA agent whose personal and professional lives continue to collapse into one another. Season 2 picks up with Martian still trying to save Samia, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, while the agency itself is pulled into a wider web of internal suspicion, shifting loyalties, and a mole hunt that turns the office into its own kind of battlefield. READ MORE: ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’: Tatiana Maslany, Jake Johnson, David Gordon Green & David Rosen On Lonely Screens, Bad Decisions, ‘She-Hulk,’ ‘Spider-Verse’ & More [Bingeworthy Podcast] The series also stars Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, Katherine Waterston, John Magaro, Dominic West, and more. And truly, one of the joys of Season 2 is watching a cast this deep make even the smallest exchanges feel like fully loaded scenes. Wright, who plays Henry Ogletree, and Magaro, who plays Owen Taylor, both spoke with Bingeworthy host Mike DeAngelo about the new season, the ensemble’s unusual chemistry, and what it takes to make all that spy-world jargon feel lived-in rather than laminated.

    ‘The Agency’ Season 2: Jeffrey Wright & John Magaro Talk Spycraft, ‘The Batman: Part II,’ ‘Presumed Innocent’ Season 2 & More [Bingeworthy Podcast]
  2. Jun 18

    ‘The Death Of Robin Hood’: Director Michael Sarnoski Finds The Brutal Roots Of A Legend, Talks Hugh Jackman, ‘Logan’ Comparisons & His ‘Death Stranding’ Film [The Discourse Podcast]

    Robin Hood has been a lot of things over the centuries: noble thief, romantic outlaw, swashbuckling folk hero, animated fox, Kevin Costner with an accent that wanders wherever it pleases. But in Michael Sarnoski’s hands, the myth becomes something darker, sadder, and more spiritually eviscerated. His new film, “The Death of Robin Hood,” is less interested in the legend as a heroic brand than in the man who might be trapped beneath its curse. Written and directed by Sarnoski, “The Death of Robin Hood” stars Hugh Jackman as an aging, haunted Robin Hood, a man grappling with a life of violence after a battle leaves him gravely injured. In the care of a mysterious Prioress played by Jodie Comer, he’s offered something that might look like salvation, if he can survive long enough to accept it. The film also stars Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe, and arrives in theaters June 19 via A24. READ MORE: ‘Obsession’: Curry Barker On His Twisted Wish-Fulfillment Horror Breakout, Inde Navarrette’s Wild Performance, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ & More [The Discourse Podcast] Sarnoski joined The Playlist’s The Discourse podcast to talk about stripping away centuries of heroic varnish, finding the emotional soul of Robin Hood, reuniting with cinematographer Pat Scola, and writing the upcoming “Death Stranding” movie. And early in the conversation, he acknowledged a thread that has become increasingly clear across his work, from “Pig” to “A Quiet Place: Day One” to “The Death of Robin Hood”: these are stories about people who, in some way, already feel dead before the movie begins.

    ‘The Death Of Robin Hood’: Director Michael Sarnoski Finds The Brutal Roots Of A Legend, Talks Hugh Jackman, ‘Logan’ Comparisons & His ‘Death Stranding’ Film [The Discourse Podcast]
4
out of 5
35 Ratings

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Home to The Playlist Podcast Network and all its affiliated shows, including The Playlist Podcast, The Discourse, Be Reel, The Fourth Wall, and more. The Playlist is the obsessive's guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, and more.