After his split from ESPN last year, Bill Simmons was only off the market for two months before signing an expansive multi-year contract with HBO. Part of the deal included a weekly sports series on the network, and while the timetable for its debut remains an ambiguous “sometime in 2016,” Simmons has been busy pumping out episodes of The Bill Simmons Podcast and preparing for the launch of the Grantland spiritual sequel site The Ringer. Now he’s adding another project to the list—Variety reports that former Grantlanders and noted Game Of Thrones aficionados Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will host After The Thrones, a talkshow recapping the events of HBO’s flagship series every week.
Ryan and Greenwald hosted the popular Hollywood Prospectus and Watch The Thrones podcasts at Grantland, which have been more or less reincarnated as The Watch under Simmons’ pop culture-focused Channel 33 podcast. The two will executive produce their new show alongside Simmons, and it’ll arrive on HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO On Demand starting April 25, the day after the Game Of Thrones season six premiere.
If the idea sounds like AMC’s Talking series of recap shows—including Dead, Bad, and Saul—that’s because it is, although Chris Hardwick probably won’t be invited to the party. There actually isn’t much information on what format After The Thrones will take, but Ryan and Greenwald’s deep well of pop-culture knowledge and even deeper friendship has led to some pretty creative criticism in the past, so if there has to be an HBO show dissecting another HBO show, at least it’s in good hands.
For those curious where they should take their third-tier criticism of the duo’s criticism, there’s a handy platform for just that (and the infinite tiers beyond): Twitter.