Wahl Street (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - ROI, Oh My - full transcript

- All right, ready?
- Yeah.

- Hey, guys, have you heard

about our new menu
at Wahlburgers?

Six new killer--
nine new killer sandwiches.

Wow, four salads, plus--
[babbles]

I was going too fast.

Ready.

Wow. Have you gruys--

"Have you gruys."
[laughter]

You know that
Wahlburgers now has

over 40 new menus on the item--



"Menus on the item."
Shit. Oh, my God.

What are you doing with this?

You're trying
to Dutch the camera.

I seen you.
- Dutch angle?

- Stop it, Archie.

Okay, hold it up.
Hold it up. Come on, guys.

You're getting tired already?

I've been working for 10 hours.
- Yeah.

- You've been working
for two minutes.

Come on, bud.
- Camera two.

- You're coasting tight.
[laughter]

Hey, look, when you're
partnered with me, baby,

sometimes, you gotta multitask.
- Oh, shit.

- We're gonna have you doing
all kinds of stuff.



- Clearly.
- Okay?

[laughter]

[paint can rattles]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Tomorrow, I gotta do
a shower scene.

- A shower scene?
- Mm.

They had me naked
in the tube.

And the water coming in,

drowning me.
[groans]

- [laughs]

We've been here
for over 70 days now.

I think as long projects
go on,

it starts to get a little bit
more difficult.

And we realize that
he is fatigued

and spending so much time
away from family.

- Yes. I gotta get home.

You come hang with me tomorrow,
though.

- Okay.

- What? You're
not even an actor, man.

You got no business being here.

You want a big part?

- Yeah.
I wanna get knocked away,

like the guard
that gets knocked away.

- You a method actor?
- No.

- You want some practice?
- I'm not method.

I met Mark

working on the show,
"Wahlburgers."

I was the showrunner.

He kind of took a shine to me
right away.

Well, I shouldn't say
"right away."

He took a shine to me
eventually.

Archie, let me pick out a hat
for you.

A bomber.

- Okay.
[both laugh]

- Yeah. Look.

- That's a look.
- Very sharp.

- Oh, get the fuck out of here.

- Archie is also another
wonderful partner.

He got kind of thrown
in the deep end with us,

and, um, I'ma be interested
to hear what his take is

on dealing with me.

- Of course,
Mark gives me shit.

[laughing]
He always likes to

give me a hard time
in a very brotherly way,

which I get a kick out of.

- I love everything
about Archie,

except for the fact
that he's a Jets fan.

But I even tolerate that too
because they're so bad.

- After several seasons
at "Wahlburgers,"

Mark said, "How about we
work together on a company?"

And I was--of course.
I mean,

that was
an incredible opportunity,

and it definitely,

you know, changed
the course of my career.

- Archie really cares
about the work

and wants to do great stuff.

He's also kind of, you know,
going through this

for the first time, you know,
building his business

with us.

- When I became president and
partner of Unrealistic Ideas

with Mark and Lev, we wanted
to do documentary films,

docuseries, non-scripted
programming, and podcasts.

There's a lot of pressure
on me

to have this company succeed.

And you see
how hard Mark works,

and you feel like you wanna
be able to match that energy.

Mark has given me the keys
to the corvette.

It's up to me now
to get to the finish line

as fast as possible.

[church bells ringing]

[pop music playing over radio]

- [sighs]
Oh, shit.

- There is a glamorous side
to the job,

but it comes
with its downsides,

which is, obviously,
if you have a family,

you don't get
to see them as much.

It generally is
a 24/7 commitment.

And nothing beats being
at home with your family.

[radio channels switching]

- Violence was allowed

to spiral out of control
in the province of--

- ♪ You're so vain ♪

♪ I bet you think
this song is about you ♪

- Oh, is this Carly Simon?
- Yeah.

Oh. Oh!

- ♪ And your horse
actually won ♪

- Original diss track.
- Yep.

- That's one of my favorites.

♪ Ooh, you flew your rear jet
up to Saratoga ♪

♪ To see the total eclipse
of the sun ♪

Yo, what'd she say?

♪ When you're
where you should be ♪

♪ All the time ♪

♪ And when you're not,
you're with ♪

♪ Some underworld spy ♪

♪ Or the wife
of a close friend ♪

♪ Wife of a close friend and ♪
That's cold.

[both chuckle]
- ♪ You're so vain ♪

♪ You probably think
this song is about you ♪

♪ You're so vain ♪

♪ So vain ♪

[overlapping chatter]
[laughter]

- How long you in London for?

- Uh, I've been here
since September,

so I'm done, uh, December 20th.

- So right before Christmas,
huh?

[soft music]

- When you own
your own business,

everything you do, you're doing
for your children

and your family, but

there are sacrifices
that you have to make.

You gotta travel,

you know, take time away
from your family.

But at the end of the day,

you could be working
for a company,

not working for yourself

and missing those same type
of opportunities.

- Okay.

[solemn music]

[line trilling]

Hey, buddy.

- How'd the interview go?

- I know it's not
your first choice,

but, you know, I talked
to the principal after,

and I think there's a way
to have you

get a little extra help
that you're gonna need

to be successful.

- I love you.

- Bye.

[indistinct chatter]

- Hello, fellow students.
- [laughs]

- No, so, um, Mark.

He feels like, what we sent him
on those samples in London

was not visually appealing.

And on the fabrics,

we can get even softer.

We got the first prototype,

and it just wasn't up
to our standards.

It didn't have that ruggedness

that we felt like
Municipal was,

and we had to start over
from scratch

kind of late in the process.

That's been challenging
because

we're going direct
from day one.

All digitally native brand.

We're meeting with Mark
when he gets back.

The thing he most wants
to talk about is

our color palette.

- Yes.

How we pick the colors
that we want

for a new season

is kind of the most,
like, tense,

stressful part
of the whole thing--

coming up with, like,
your color palette.

- We got a little work
to do still,

but we'll get there.

- He wants us to get bold.
- Mm-hmm.

- And have it in the market
in six months.

- Yes.
- Right?

[laughter]
- Right, exactly.

- In the perfect colors.
- Exactly.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- We've been involved with F45
for quite some time.

We're still in the middle
of negotiating a deal

with the parent company,
you know, for us

to open up multiple studios
in multiple territories.

But I've always had a knack

for grinding, working hard,

and I don't pride myself
on doing anything

other than being successful.

The great thing about F45,

it really is a win
for everybody.

- This master
franchise agreement

that we're working on,
because it isn't finalized yet,

you know, there's a chance
that it falls apart.

- And he asked this...
[overlapping chatter]

- So now, Mark is using
all of his resources

to promote the company
and the brand.

And once he's proven out
its value,

hopefully, we could, you know,
just sign the contract

and focus on
getting people in the door

and start getting them
fit and healthy.

- Hey.
- You all right?

- Ruben.
Nice to meet you.

- Hi. How are you?
- Nice to meet you.

Thanks for coming.
- Thank you for having me.

- Yeah, it's gonna be fun.
Have you been to one before?

- Mm-mm.
- Oh, cool.

We're gonna have a nice time.

- I feel like the pace is

gonna be quite fun.
- The great thing is,

you can do at your own pace,
and your own level of weights.

- Yeah. Okay, cool.
- Cool.

- Are we ready?

[all cheer]

- Mark's ability to promote,
I think, is second to none.

He leverages
his whole network,

all of the different friends
that

also have a different type
of reach,

so that viral effect
is just so powerful.

- Happy National
Workout Buddy Day.

- Yeah.
- Just killed it with the homie.

- As a business,
working with a celebrity,

the company benefits with
what we call "earned media."

That means that every time
you see that celebrity's movie

or hear that song
by the celebrity,

you wanna support that company

'cause that company
was smart enough to have

such an amazing individual
carrying that flag for them.

- F45. Team training.

Life-changing.

- How was the workout?

- That was a workout.

- If y'all do F45 training,
man,

I respect the hell
out of y'all.

[exciting music]

- Not so bad after all.

- I wanna create an excitement

and awareness of the brand.

And we're like, you know,

the Nike of fitness,

and we're, like,
literally changing the game

and changing people's lives.

Hopefully, we convinced
the parent company,

you know, that I can
actually be a person

who brings added value
to the equation.

[hip-hop music]

♪ ♪

Archie.
Come here. Come here.

Lookit. Lookit. Look at this
production value we have here.

Archie's doing it like this.

[laughter]

Pointing at whoever's speaking.
- It's like Gene Rayburn.

- Let me ask you
a couple questions.

- Happy to.

- You don't trust me, huh?
[laughter]

No.
- I do trust you--

- The more I look at you, the
more we get to know each other,

the more you remind me of...
- Who?

- David O. Russell.
- Oh, really?

- Oh, yeah.
- A good friend of yours.

- He's terrified.
[both laugh]

He's always scared
I'm gonna do something.

- All right.
And, rolling!

- It's been really fun
shooting a movie in Europe,

but it's time to get home

to be with my family.

- Yeah, get it.
- Archie, come on! Have one.

- What is it?
- It's ginger.

Try it.
It's good for you.

But we all pop it.
One sip. Come on.

Toast.

Give it to me.
I'll drink some of it.

[all groan]

- Fucking awful.

- Put some meat
on your bones, Archie.

[exciting music]

Being separated by my family,

you know, it's the biggest
sacrifice always for me.

It's part of the gig,
you know?

I gotta go where
work takes me, and, um,

that time apart,
you don't get that time back.

Benny.
- Yeah?

- What's up, bud?

Look at that.
Autographed LeBron James.

- What's NFLBA?
[chuckles]

- Jordan. Offense.

You guys opened more?

- 11 1/2 hours.

We shot yesterday,

worked out, packed,

went right to the airport,

11 1/2 hours, got here.

Brendan stayed up late

so he and I could
spend time together.

- Oh, it's one of my cards.
It's Walt Frazier.

- What's up, CardBoy?

- Yeah!

I wanted to do something
to be able to get my kids

off of video games
and engaged in something,

so we started talking
about collecting cards,

and they're super into it.

What do we got so far, guys?

You guys follow thecardboyz
on Instagram?

What's your Instagram?

- thecardboyz.

- We're just getting started,

but hopefully, I will be able

to kind of put my kids
in a position

to build a business and learn
a bit of responsibility.

- It smells like good ones.
- The only problem with these?

No gum.

I'm trying to train Brendan.

He's ready to take over
the family business anyway.

- Dan Marino.
- Dan Marino?

- Dan Marino?
[cries comically]

- Oh, my gosh.

You wanna watch a movie
with me?

- What?

♪ ♪

[bird wings flapping]

[upbeat jazz music]

♪ ♪

- Which sweatshirt--

which color works
for which sweatshirt,

which T-shirt, which short.
- Uh-huh.

- Harry seems stressed.

- What makes you think that,
Mark?

Why do you think I'm stressed?
I'm not stressed.

Why do you think I'm stressed?
- With Municipal,

I still haven't really
got them to hone in

on exactly what I like,

and want, and expect.

And I've been a bit surprised
at how many times

we've had to look at samples,

see what the fabric looks like,

the color, the fit--
all of those things,

so it's been a process.

- I don't know if Mark would've
picked that color last time.

- Oh, I'm obsessed with color.

So, you know?
[overlapping chatter]

I think that color is
what's going to separate us

from everyone else.

- I would love for us to pick

two to three
additional hoodie colors.

Add to what we already have.

- It's, like,
almost like periwinkle.

- Yeah.
- Right?

I would definitely
keep this magenta.

I was like, "What the heck?"

You know, whatever happened
to blue and orange?

And fucking pink,
and purple, and green?

A fucking guava,
and all this other shit.

- I have a whole presentation
I wanna show you too

that's on orange color theory.

Do you have a minute?
Do you think we could do that?

- Why do you have
to constantly break my balls?

We're gonna do that next time.
- We'll do it next time? Okay.

- Gonna carve out four hours
for that.

- So--
- No, this one.

- Put them all on here.
They all go with that.

Done.

- It's a process.
- It's a process.

[laughter]

[eerie music]

[phone chiming]

- That's incredible, man.

[chuckles]
This means so much.

It was a lot of hard work,

you know, kind of getting
the terms finalized

for the master
franchise agreement,

but we got it across the line.

I can't wait to break the news
to the team.

Everybody's fired up
and just ready to go.

- We're excited.
It's all happening.

We've got a great team that's
really passionate about it

and wants to open up
multiple studios

in multiple territories.

Right now we're just looking
for different ways

to continue to help people
stay as healthy as possible.

[exciting music]

- Ryan and Mark clearly have
a great relationship,

and I see them, you know,
doing very big things

with the F45 franchise model.

[people cheer]

♪ ♪

- Mark is on the front lines,

you know, opening up
these franchises of his own,

which is the best
possible endorsement

we could ever hope to see.

- Oh, it's incredible, man.

Well, thank you
for all your help through this.

It was a lot of relief,
a great sense of accomplishment.

Shannon.

But also, this feeling of,

okay, now the real work starts.

We're gonna need you
to figure out

how to clone yourself...

- [laughs]
- 'Cause we need 100 of you

every year.

- I'm on it.
This is awesome.

How soon can we start?
- Oh, yesterday.

- [laughs]
- Yeah. I hope you're ready.

- I'm ready.
- Yeah?

- Now, we can really help grow
the brand itself,

but also open up
a lot of studios for us,

which we thought could
be a very lucrative business.

- Yes! That's awesome.
- Yeah.

- Can't wait.

[slow jazz music]

♪ ♪

- I'm dry, baby.
- Yeah.

- I'm the dry guy.
Discipline.

What's today's date?

160 days today.
- Wow.

- Boo-boo, not a sip.
Not a drop.

- Right.
- Birmingham, right?

- All right, so, Archie,
let's hear it.

- Well, this here is all a slate

of all the shoot we have in
various stages of development.

Look, I took a pay cut
to start this company,

and I'm taking a lot of gambles,
you know.

I'm making a lot of sacrifices.

I'm willing to bet on myself

and, of course,
Mark and Lev too.

Those guys bring a huge amount
to the table,

and they have already
succeeded tremendously

in the entertainment industry.

So I feel a lot of pressure
to have this company succeed

so I can do right by them.

And we gotta lock in in
one of these series, you know?

The thing is, we haven't even
had anything on the air yet.

Once "McMillions" comes out,
people see the company,

you know, it's gonna
be a next level.

So we just sold
a limited documentary series

called "McMillions" to HBO.

It's the first thing
we've ever sold.

And because we're
such a new company,

there's a ton at stake.

So we need this to be
a game changer for us.

They just dropped the teaser
for it.

- I know.

- That's it?

- Oh, 500,000.

Well, when we pitch--

- Yeah. Exactly.

[laughter]

♪ ♪

[hip-hop music]

♪ ♪

Gonna go see Municipal.
[chuckles]

- Hey, Mark.
- Oh, hey, buddy.

- Come on in.

This is all domestic fabric,
different kinds of fabric.

All of it's white because
we'll send it out to dye.

[mellow music]

- The apparel business
is something

I was always hugely
passionate about

and wanted to be a part of,
and, you know,

we think the sky's the limit.

- And this one,
before it's going to printing,

they're all trimming it
all out over here.

This is the shrinkage
that's added.

Once it goes to dye, that's when
it'll shrink to size.

That way, it hits the spec
that you guys provide for us.

- Very cool, huh?

- It's great.
It's impressive.

- You have to learn
about your products

more than anything else.

And through that, you get
these incredible insights

that let you understand
how to connect your products,

your services, to the consumer
and the audience

in a way
that's really relevant.

- You ever sell
your own stuff, Mark?

- Dude...
- [laughs]

- I don't know if you saw
that picture that I posted

of me in the second grade.
- Yes.

- Those are my brother,
Bob's pants.

He's two kids older than me,

and my brother's sneakers,

so yeah, there was lots
of sewing, hemming.

- So where are you on the--
- I'm the youngest of nine.

- So probably not a lot
of new stuff getting to you.

- No. I mean, I tell you,
I was trying to get my kids

to grasp the idea
that my oldest sister

bought me my first pair
of Converse--

Chuck Taylor, all white--

and I did everything
that I could

to keep them white--

you know, shoe polish,
toothbrush--

like, cleaning them until

you couldn't
keep them white anymore,

and then
I did everything I could

to burn a hole in the bottom.

So dragging them on my bike,

on a car, you know,
on the concrete--

- To get them worn?
- To try to get a hole in them

to get another pair of shoes.

- Oh. Oh, I see.
- Yeah.

- We're gonna go through
some stuff here.

- Yes.
- Mark, what you're gonna see

on the wall here really is

three different fabrications
of T-shirts.

- It's the smallest details
in the fit.

Like the pitch of the sleeve,

is it, you know, winging out?

When you raise your arm,
do the shoulders go up?

It's all that stuff
that makes the T-shirt,

when you put it on
and it's done right,

like, "This is my favorite tee
in the world."

- Yeah.
I think, overall,

Harry especially,
and his team,

have a very good idea of what

the mass consumer's
looking for and buying.

- If this is available online,

you'll order it from
so many different climates.

- Our investor, Mike Raymond,

was willing
to kind of bet on us

and finance the company
at a pretty significant number,

so we feel a huge,
overwhelming amount

of responsibility to make sure
that we're successful.

- Bye.
- Bye, guys.

- Thanks, Mark.
- All right.

Okay.
- Thank you.

- Thank you.
- Thank you for being here.

- My bad.
- [laughs]

- Mike Raymond and I,
we met through a mutual friend

and started talking about
partnering up with Wahlburgers.

From there, F45 and Municipal.

Mike's super smart,
really, really knowledgeable,

and I wanna hear
his opinions and thoughts.

- Yeah. Right.

- After what was going on

in London with Wahlburgers,
I mean,

we had to have a conversation
about a lot of things.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

Oh, thanks, guys, for meeting
with us on short notice.

- Yeah.
- I know these guys

have told you a little bit
about what's going on.

Have you guys visited
Wahlburgers anywhere?

- I'll just talk about
my experience, right?

You know, first of all,
it is totally unexpected

to walk into a place
called Wahlburger

and see a big bar like that.

We sat there because
there was a wait for tables

and it was open seating
at the bar.

And there was one bartender.
- Mm-hmm.

- That was taking food orders
from 28 seats

and providing
service-bar services,

and serving us drinks,
and washing glassware.

And was also the person
that ran to the window

to pick up to-go orders.

Like, one guy.

If you're asking for
a "pull no punches" analysis

of the three big ones,

I would give the menu, uh,

probably an 8/10
for creativity,

a 5/10 for execution,

and the service a,

3 1/2 to 4 out of 10

for meeting
customer expectations.

- [dejectedly]
Mm-hmm.

Fuck!

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- You know, the way
it actually was executed

was a disappointment
based on what

expectation of the menu
had set up.

- Mm-hmm.

I think we need direction.

We need real experienced people
in the space, um,

to be able to kind of help us
achieve our goals.

- When it's all going great,

everybody's a genius,
everybody loves everybody.

It's fantastic.
You're making a lot of money.

You're making a lot of people
happy.

But a business is really

tested when it goes bad.

And that is the mark,
in my opinion,

of a good manager
in business--

dealing with the unpleasant.

- I mean, ultimately,
when we started this business,

I was like, "I wanna grow
and build a business

that I can pass on
to future generations."

And then, I was like,
"Oh, my God,

"we gotta figure out how to
make sure that this business

"is profitable for
the people who are, you know,

taking a risk on us
and invested in us."

And that being said,
there's days where I'm like,

"Why the fuck did I get involved
in this shit?"

You know, it's just frustrating.

You know, we're in it
for the long haul,

but we wanna figure out
how to do it the right way.

- I mean,
every day that goes by,

there's money left
on the table,

so, you know, the key
to everything is to understand

what the objectives are.

- Um, running and
operating restaurants,

multiple units,
it's not an easy thing to do.

Lots of problems.

- Nice to meet you.
- The biggest takeaway is

don't continue to wait
for things to fix themselves

because if they were fixable,

they would've never been
fucked up in the first place.

Excuse my language.

[plane whirring]

[dramatic music]

- Right.

- You have to be able
to do the job

and deliver
on the highest level.

- Yeah.

And look, you see other people

who we've been
in business with,

and if they ain't
cutting the mustard,

they get clipped.

♪ ♪