What the &%*# did I do?!?!

New book news, plus the 'Platonic' finale, 'Chad Powers,' 'Slow Horses,' 'Peacemaker,' 'Platonic,' and more

Alan Sepinwall

03 Oct 2025 — 8 min read

Getting ready to spend more time with Detective McNulty and friends

Whats alan watching what the bleep did i do

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All in the publishing game

Some news, as they say: I have a new book in the works, about a show you might have heard of called The Wire.

What we're tentatively calling All in the Game: The Complete Critical Companion to The Wire will, like my previous Abrams books about Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Better Call Saul, be an episode-by-episode look at the series, taking my original online recaps and either fleshing them out or rewriting them altogether, to provide a guide to watching the series, whether it's your first viewing or your 17th. There will also be some new interviews with people who worked on the show. And like the announcement says, it will come out in the summer of 2027, around the 25th anniversary of the series' debut. (Yes, 25. Insert gif of Private Ryan aging into an old man here.)

But wait, some of you may be asking, aren't currently you working on a book about Rod Serling? I am! But I'm close to turning in the first draft of that manuscript, and the disparate nature of the two books, and where each is in their respective production timelines, will allow me to toggle back and forth between them while also writing regularly here at What's Alan Watching?

Much more on this once we have a cover, preorder information, and more. I'm excited about this for a lot of reasons, not least of is which that it gives me an excuse to rewatch the freaking Wire. And speaking of which, look at Baby Michael B. Jordan in the first episode:

What's next?

Among the things to look forward to at What's Alan Watching?(*)

Later today, my take on this week's Peacemaker, for paid subscribers;
My recap of the fourth episode of The Lowdown, for paid subscribers;
My recap of the third episode of Slow Horses Season Five, for paid subscribers;
My review of Tim Robinson's new HBO comedy, The Chair Company, for paid subscribers;
Depending on time and screener availability, reviews of Netflix's Boots and/or Apple's The Last Frontier.
The Friday newsletter, for free subscribers

(*) The recaps are all coming next week; some of the reviews may bleed into the following week, depending on available time. This operation launched at an unusually busy stretch of the TV calendar, including me recapping three shows at once for a few weeks. The amount of content per week is going to wax and wane depending on what's out there, and what outside the box ideas I have in periods when not much new is happening.

Catching up

Here's what I published since last Friday's newsletter:

I recapped a pivotal Peacemaker episode that revealed the true nature of the parallel Earth where Chris has been hanging out (paid subscribers):

I got wonky with my old pal Myles McNutt (from Episodic Medium) about the kinds of shows I do and don't review today, with separate discussions of procedurals (free):

And reality TV (free):

I reviewed Hulu's Chad Powers, a comedy starring Glen Powell as a disgraced former quarterback who disguises himself to start over as a college football walk-on (paid subscribers):

I recapped the latest episode of The Lowdown, where we got to see more of Lee Raybon, girl dad (paid subscribers):

I recapped this week's delightful episode of Slow Horses, where I got to bust out my first "dayenu" recap since at least the Uproxx days, if not further back (paid subscribers):

Speaking of throwbacks, I revived my old Ask Alan videos from the HitFix days, with questions about The Shield, great TV criers, and whether bad revivals should impact how we feel about the original shows, for subscribers to the What Else Is Alan Watching? tier:

Looking back on Platonic Season Two

Random thoughts — with spoilers — on Platonic Season Two, focused mainly on this week's finale:

Do we have to create a new Emmy category for Best Wordless Cameo? Best Onscreen Masturbator? Gamest Guest Star? Whatever you want to name it, Bobby Cannavale deserves it for his hilarious appearance as Charlie's literary alter ego Brett Coyote, who keeps walking into scenes that Charlie has written, but never says anything and simply pleasures himself, because it's the only thing that Charlie can do whenever he gets writer's block. A perfect gag, and th perfect guest star to play it, because Cannavale has such a long track record of playing a gross guy, going all the way back to his Sex and the City appearance as the guy with funky spunk.
An excellent season overall for Luke Macfarlane as Charlie, particularly during and after Charlie's meltdown on Jeopardy! Alex Trebek had a long list of pop culture appearances — most famously when Cliff Clavin on Cheers asked, "Who are three people who've never been in my kitchen?" — so Ken Jennings has a long way to go to catch up. But this was a fine start.
Another second banana used very well this year: Carla Gallo's Katie, who both finds the perfect way out of continuing to hook up with Will (telling him she gets clingy), and who become the worst possible parody of a podcaster, with her affected vocal fry and fake live ad reads for ZipRecruiter.
The sequence in the finale where the beer began exploding onto Sylvia's lawn was at least one instance too many this season of characters frantically running around and screaming when something goes awry. It's a mode that's tended to work better for Seth Rogen over on The Studio, where the scale of things is so much bigger and more innately ridiculous that panic in the face of disaster seems more of a piece with everything else. To me, Platonic is at its funniest when it's generating comedy out of behavior and dialogue than everyone yelling. Though I'll make an exception for Sylvia yelling at the (non-Brett) coyote in one of the early episodes.
If the season had an Achilles heel, it was Jenna. The writers never figured out what was supposed to be funny about her as a character, so she existed only as an obstacle to Will and Sylvia's friendship, and then to Will's career post-breakup. And even that mostly petered out until the finale, where Jenna's continued hatred of Will means that he and Sylvia will have to team up to run his Shitty Little Bar business.
Loved the Los Angeles River episode, and how the show treated it as a freak show akin to the fourth floor of Pawnee City Hall on Parks and Rec.
Interesting to see an episode of a show co-created by Nicholas Stoller do a bunch of jokes about what a bad guy Russell Brand turned out to be, when it was Stoller's Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek that briefly made Brand into a movie star. Whether that's an expression of regret, or simply doing it now that he's an unavoidable target, it definitely stood out.
Another excellent lineup of guest stars this season, though some got more play than others: Aidy Bryant as Cabo Carrie, Paul Lieberstein as a therapist coincidentally named Dr. Melfi, Kyle Mooney as Jenna's new henchman Terry, and Beck Bennett as Wild Card. I liked the Wild Card episode a lot — particularly the guys attempting to disguise their lust for Sydney Sweeney by finding other non-physical things about her to praise, as well as Will having whale-themed a wet dream while sleeping next to Wild Card — but that's a tough nickname for any TV comedy to use after Charlie Kelly made it immortal on Always Sunny. And it felt like Terry's campaign to encourage Will to quit largely fizzled. While Rogen and Sam McMurray never interacted on Freaks and Geeks, it's always nice to have two alums from that show appear together. Especially when they're involved in a memorably gross bit of physical comedy, like Will accidentally making his future father-in-law's eye explode during a golf course mishap.

Apple has yet to order a third season. Feels like the kind of thing that will happen if Rogen has time, and if he and Rose Byrne want to keep doing it. The idea of them working together — and Sylvia technically becoming Will's boss — feels like it would alter their dynamic just enough to keep things from growing stale. But Rogen and Byrne are so good together that I'd happily watch regardless of the specifics of the friendship.

That's it for today! What did everybody else think? I can be reached at alan@alansepinwall.com