On this episode of The Buzz, I first sit down with Shawn Ryan, Eileen Myers and Adam Arkin to talk about MGM+’s American Hostage. Then, we’re heading into the culinary world with Knife Edge host Jesse Burgess as we talk food, Michelin stars and the chefs whose journeys become about so much more than what’s on the plate.
Going Inside American Hostage
I had the opportunity to watch American Hostage before speaking with Shawn Ryan, Eileen Myers and Adam Arkin, and one of the first things that grabbed my attention was how the series looks.
The split screens. The timestamps. The simultaneous reactions. There are moments when you’re watching several pieces of the story unfold at once, and instead of distracting from what’s happening, it adds to the urgency.
I asked: whose idea was this? That credit goes to Eileen Myers.
Myers explained that the phone conversations were filmed simultaneously, with Adam Arkin directing the actors as they actually spoke to one another in real time. Watching those performances unfold on the monitors gave Myers the idea of allowing viewers to experience the conversations in a similar way.
The split-screen presentation also became a nod to 1970s cinema.
Arkin, however, admitted he wasn’t immediately thrilled by the prospect of putting it all together.
With four director’s cuts to deliver in only 16 days, he already had a very full plate. When Myers introduced the split-screen idea, Arkin said he initially “freaked out.” Ultimately, he knew it was the right call.
Ryan also credited the way Arkin shot the series for making the approach possible. Between the intimate footage of the central performances and reactions happening elsewhere in the radio station, the editors had plenty of material to make those sequences feel alive.
Recreating a True Story
There was another detail I couldn’t ignore while watching American Hostage: the attention paid to recreating images associated with the real-life story.
That led us into a larger conversation about something every dramatization of actual events has to confront: How do you stay faithful to history when history didn’t document everything?
Arkin explained that actual news footage provided the production with a blueprint for certain sequences. Winnipeg also gave them a backdrop that could capture the feeling of Indianapolis during that period.
Ryan offered an important distinction about the series.
Rather than simply asking whether they “got it right” or “got it wrong,” the team used the information available to them and tried to be as accurate as possible. But history doesn’t give you transcripts of every private conversation that happened behind closed doors. Those moments required storytelling.
As Ryan put it during our conversation, American Hostage is more “inspired by a true story” than strictly based on one. After watching the series, I thought that balance came across incredibly well.
American Hostage is now streaming on MGM+.
From Hostages to Michelin Stars…
In the words of Ross Gellar, let’s pivot to food!
My second conversation takes us into a completely different world as Knife Edge host Jesse Burgess joins me to talk about Season 2.
I started our conversation by calling myself a foodie—and then almost immediately revoked the title.
After watching Jesse travel around and experience some of these dishes, I’m not convinced my palate is cultured enough!
Jesse disagreed, and I actually loved his reasoning: everybody eats. Everybody has things they like and things they don’t. In some way, we’re all foodies.
But what fascinated me most about Knife Edge wasn’t simply the food. It was how emotionally invested I became in the chefs.
Rooting for the Chefs
While watching the first three episodes of the new season, I noticed how invested Jesse himself seemed to be in these chefs and their pursuit of Michelin recognition.
He’s not simply standing on the sidelines narrating what happens. He’s rooting for them. Eventually, so was I.
Jesse explained that this is one of the stylistic differences between Seasons 1 and 2. This time, viewers spend more time inside the restaurants. We hear more about the food. We see more of Jesse interacting with the chefs.
Most importantly, we get to know these people beyond what they’re doing in the kitchen.
The goal is that by the time we reach those Michelin ceremonies, we’re just as invested in the outcome as Jesse is.
There’s a story in the Florida episode that particularly got to me. I’m not going to spoil what happens, but watching the pressure build and seeing one chef trying to hold everything together hit me much harder than I expected.
At one point I realized, Wow, I really feel for her.
That’s when Knife Edge stopped being just a show about restaurants and Michelin stars for me. It became a show about the people behind them.
Jesse also cleared up something viewers apparently ask him about quite a bit: No, he does not have any sway with Michelin.
Although after becoming emotionally invested in some of these chefs himself, he admitted there are people he would have happily given everything to “in a heartbeat.”
Knife Edge Season 2 premieres September 25 with two episodes, followed by new episodes weekly on Apple TV.
Check out my complete conversations with Shawn Ryan, Eileen Myers, Adam Arkin and Jesse Burgess on this episode of The Buzz – BuzzWorthy Radio.
