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Tag: overnights

  • Heated Rivalry Recap: Dancing On My Own

    Last week’s cutesy, comedy-less rom-com was all good and well — a little something for the moms watching — but thank god we’re finally back to the story between Ilya and Shane that got us invested in this show in the first place. Their long-distance, slow-burn situationship is well portrayed through a montage at the beginning of the episode that spans 2014 to 2016. We see them continue to text, Ilya partying and Shane shooting brand deals, and both checking their calendars for the next game they have against each other. Those games are intercut with glimpses of the sex they’re having afterwards, and after Shane wins two cups, Ilya texts him, “The only cup you’ll have next year is the one I’ll take off with my mouth.”

    But naturally, over this long stretch of time, people are asking about their respective romantic lives. During a trip to the aquarium with Hayden and his four kids, who only appear off-screen (saving production money that they can then spend on body oil), he asks about an ex of Shane’s, and tries to set him up with one of his wife’s friends. Even Shane’s parents try to set him up with a Swedish princess — a brief break from their usual focus on his brand deals. Even Ilya gets pressed by Svetlana about whether he’s dating, and she asks about the mysterious “Jane” he’s texting. But neither of them seems open to any romantic prospects outside of one another.

    Finally, the pair meet again at Ilya’s place, and waste no time kissing right there in the entryway, where Ilya lifts Shane up onto the counter. We then cut to Shane riding him in bed like a Zamboni, before getting spun around in a smooth position switch. Afterwards, when Shane suggests that he should go, Ilya asks him to spend the night, adding, “I’m not done with you.” Even hotter than the bare asses.

    It’s also a marked shift from what we’re used to seeing between them, especially from Ilya. In the first two episodes, their relationship was predominantly physical, but naturally, over such a long stretch of time, a personal connection has grown. Amongst other things, a-yo! What happens when Shane stays is far more intimate and vulnerable than anything we’ve seen thus far — they cuddle, Ilya asks if Shane’s ginger ale is cold enough, and even offers to make him a tuna melt. A tuna melt! Get a room, you two, Jesus. But with this evolution comes confusion. Purely sexual or fully romantic are much easier connections for someone to wrap their head around than this grey, in-between area on that spectrum.

    For example, when they’re sitting on the couch, Ilya mentions sleeping with Svetlana and dating women, which Shane seems to bristle at. In turn, Shane says he likes girls too, even though Ilya hasn’t seen any proof of this. “I like girls, but I also like you,” Ilya tells him. “Not as a person, of course. But you have a good mouth.” The barb points out the elephant slowly wandering into the room — are they just mouths (and butts), or are they people in each other’s lives? While the first half of this conversation points to the former, the next part, in which Shane asks if Ilya’s father is okay after overhearing a tense phone call, suggests the latter. “Oh, you speak Russian now?” he asks, to which Shane replies, “I know the word for father.” Yeah, I bet he knows the Russian word for daddy, too.

    Cuddling on the couch quickly turns to Shane getting on top of Ilya yet again, this time jerking them both off. But post-completion, Shane suddenly has a change of heart and quickly decides to leave, saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” It’s like he’s reading off that Post-It note Berger left for Carrie Bradshaw. That grey area might just be too much for him to wrap his head around.

    Later in the episode, Shane gets invited to a party where the show essentially presents him with his two potential paths. First, when he orders a drink, a seemingly flirtatious male bartender gives it to him for free — so that’s what’s available behind Door Number One. But behind Door Number Two is the actress Rose Landry (played by Yellowjackets’s Sophie Nélisse). Impossible to say which is the gayer choice: gay sex or hanging out with Young Melanie Lynskey. Ultimately, he chooses the latter. She’s in town shooting a new “X-Squad” movie, and being that she grew up in a family of hockey fans, the pair naturally hit it off.

    But what’s really driving this connection? A high profile relationship would make sense if Shane was facing questions about his sexuality from the public, but any pressure to date has really just come from his close friends and family. There’s also the possibility that he’s actually into Rose. But the timing of this is interesting, with it happening right after Ilya mentioned sleeping with women himself. Is this some kind of competitive bi-off? Or maybe he’s scared that his connection with Ilya is beginning to shift more toward the romantic than the physical, and this is an attempt to run or course-correct.

    In any case, the relationship soon goes public. Paparazzi photos of the pair are taken, Rose wears his jersey to a game, and they quickly become the hot celebrity/sports couple — like Travis and Taylor. Ilya, being the Karlie Kloss in this situation, is, of course, disgruntled by the coverage.

    Two weeks later, they’re playing against each other again, and per usual, Shane is on his phone before the game. But this time it’s Rose he’s texting, who wants him to go out to the club with her afterwards. Old habits die hard, though, and we see him check his messages with Ilya…but nothing. Maybe that’s why they both end up underperforming in what turns out to be a dud of a game, though we do at least get one quick glimpse of Ilya throwing Shane up against the glass out on the ice. Oh, I didn’t realize this was an exhibition match.

    After the game, Shane meets up with Rose as planned, and despite being exhausted, agrees to dance with her at the club. But guess who also decided to go to what seems to be Montreal’s only club after the game? Ilya, who watches on after spotting hockey’s new it-couple together across the dance floor. But two can play at that game, so Ilya finds a girl of his own and ups the ante by making out with her in front of Shane. I can already picture the fan edits of this scene set to “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn. But since this is a Crave Original, that of course isn’t the song actually playing, it’s “All The Things She Said” by (fittingly) Russian duo t.A.T.u.

    But quick sidebar: what’s the deal with Rose’s friend Miles? He’s actively flirting with Shane at their table, makes eyes at Ilya at the bar, and then, in the strangest move of all, joins Shane and Rose on the dance floor and not only grinds up behind Shane, but kisses his neck like they’re in Challengers? And it goes completely unacknowledged by everyone. What the fuck is that about?

    Perhaps because the club refused to play Robyn’s music, both of our hockey players soon leave. Shane has sex with Rose, which feels a little like watching a dog walk on its hind legs, whereas Ilya is left to jerk off alone in the shower. But as we cut back and forth between their respective completions, it feels like the moment they’re both actually still in is the brief eye contact they made on the dance floor.

    • 12:34: Shane’s butt in motion, grinding as he rides Ilya. Classless.

    • 12:50: A rear shot of him walking toward Ilya in bed, fully nude. Tasteful.

    • 41:28: Ilya’s hockey butt narrowly avoids shattering the glass as he jerks off in the shower. Christmas came early and so did he.

    Tom Smyth

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  • Southern Charm Recap: The Wrong Stuff

    Southern Charm

    A Moveable Beast

    Season 11

    Episode 4

    Editor’s Rating

    3 stars

    The way Craig brings up a baseless rumor in the middle of a fight with Austen is a perfect example of his erratic behavior since the big breakup.
    Photo: Bravo

    It must be tough being Craig Conover, being that handsome and yet that consistently wrong. Just look at this non-fight with Austen that Craig turns into a big deal by handling the situation as deftly as a blindfolded juggler with vertigo. Craig initially got mad that Austen was making cracks about him hanging out in the hot tub, drinking with girls. He starts with telling Austen that it’s silly to be against fun. He is entirely correct. Then he says that Austen is just jealous that Craig is single and he’s not because he might be unhappy in his relationship, which is also correct. Then he says, “Austen, keep running your mouth and Shep is going to say something that’s going to ruin your life.” Okay, now you’re wrong, now you’re entirely wrong!

    His first incorrect assumption is that if Austen keeps talking, Shep is going to step in and defend Craig, but Craig doesn’t need defending, and he is the one who turned Austen being a bit of a dick into this whole fight that is going to ruin Whitner’s birthday party. His second incorrect assumption is that Shep knows something that will ruin Austen’s life, which I don’t think he really does. This is why the cast keeps talking about how they’re afraid of Craig and how unpredictable he is. It’s the escalation from nothing to scorched earth. Madison points out that over the past several years, when he was with Paige and drinking less, he was focused on his business, being successful, and getting along with his friends. Since the breakup, he’s back to drinking and, well, cue the old footage of Craig being an asshole for no reason!

    Craig and Austen go inside to continue their fight, and Shep tells the table what Craig is talking about. Apparently, when Shep was in New York a few weeks ago, some women in a bar approached him and told him that their friend was talking to Austen. Shep brought this up to Craig to ask if he should even concern Austen about it, and Craig said “no,” to preserve Austen’s peace. I think that is the right play. Can these random strangers in a bar, whose friend very well could be lying to them, be trusted? No. Craig knows this. However, as soon as he was a little peeved at Austen, he brought it up. Sure, he doesn’t exactly spill or reveal what was said, but he does mention it at a group event in front of cameras and then forces Shep to bring it up when they both decided that it wasn’t worth it.

    Dude, that’s wrong! Not only is it then giving credence to something that is no more than a rumor, something that Craig already dismissed as a made-up attack on his reputation, but it’s also putting Shep and Austen’s relationship in jeopardy because now Austen is mad at Shep for talking to Craig about his relationship. Now, I know there would be no show without these guys talking shit behind one another’s backs all the time, but fair is fair, and when they both decided not to bring it up, they should have left it there.

    Inside, Craig and Austen’s fight gets deeper with Craig saying he’s upset with Austen for saying he’s afraid of him. Then he calls it a lie, saying that Austen isn’t afraid of him. Then he asks him, “Are you afraid of me?” while yelling and displaying the exact behavior that, yes, Austen is afraid of. This is what drives me crazy about Craig. He says that Austen is lying and not scared of him, but then later he tells Salley, “I’m not going to be gaslit into thinking I did something wrong.” Craig is the epitome of believing feelings over facts. If he feels Austen isn’t afraid of him, then that is a fact. If he feels he did nothing wrong, then he did nothing wrong, and any attempt to convince him otherwise is “gaslighting,” the incurable gonorrhea of words.

    The problem is that Craig is wrong. He brought up something he and Shep decided wasn’t worth mentioning in front of both a group of people and the cameras. That makes sure it’s going to be discussed even though he’s still hiding behind not being the one who said it, like an idiot standing in a hurricane with a bodega umbrella. He even says, “I tried my best not to get involved.” Dude! You brought it up! There would be nothing if not for you! If people tell him that raising the issue is wrong and he should apologize to Austen, as multiple people suggest, that is not “gaslighting,” that is having a different opinion (and the correct one). That is being a good friend and telling Craig he was out of bounds. That is defending truth, decency, humanity, democracy, net neutrality, and the $5 foot-long.

    When Craig talks about gaslighting to Salley, she and her extra e tell him how great he is and how he’s really just misunderstood. But is he? Is he great? This is so Salley, to drop everything and agree with a man just so that she’ll pick her, choose her. There is one person who has Salley’s number and that is our beloved Molly. As the fight was raging inside, Salley said she was telling Craig to apologize; she wasn’t just over there flirting. Molly says it looks like she was flirting, and Salley then tells Molly to hush up because she knows Molly has been talking about her. Salley said she was talking facts about Molly behaving inappropriately at Madison’s shower, but Molly was making things up about Salley calling dibs on every man in Charleston.

    This is where the fight gets exciting. Salley asks who she has been calling dibs on. Then Venita, who is her best friend, mind you, grabs the muggle sitting next to her and starts pawing at him, doing a Salley impersonation and saying, “Craig! Craig! Craig! Craig!” Molly then calls Salley out on telling Charley not to talk to Craig, which she says she didn’t say. Then both Venita and Rodrigo, my favorite cat dad, tell her that, yes, she did say that and the footage proves it. I love that Salley is trying to change the story, trying to convince us she didn’t do something, and even her friends are like, “No, you are that bitch. Own it.” Salley, like any Englishman on any beach anywhere in the world, is burnt.

    The day after the fight, we find out that Salley and Charley kept Craig company in his hot tub until 4 a.m., but that nothing happened. Salley thinks it’s weird that Craig didn’t make a move. He says in a confessional that when he’s after a girl, he likes to play a long game. Then he has Charley come over with a bunch of art that looks like it was lifted from the conference rooms of airport Best Westerns. Oh, Charley is totally winning. It seems like Craig is way more into her than into Salley. However, if I were to predict what is going to happen, I would say that Salley is going to make a move on Craig, they’re going to bone, and that is how Salley is going to “win.” Then Craig will end up pursuing Charley, and Salley will get all bent out of shape. I’m telling you, I have read the tea leaves (i.e., the remnants of Jell-O shots at the bottom of Craig’s hot tub).

    Also, after the party, we get a nice scene with Madison and her son Hudson, where she talks about waiting for the new baby and her changing relationship with her son. Then we get a glimpse into Whitner’s life and, well, it’s giving viral morning routine with Saratoga Springs water vibes. He gets up at precisely 4:35 a.m., takes the dog out, runs and exercises for a few hours (and, damn, son, it’s working!), and then he is at work at 8 a.m., working as a lawyer and calling his adorable mother. If I wasn’t fully in lust with our man before, well, I am now, Patrick Bateman cosplay or no.

    The episode ends with the boys talking to their confidantes about what they should do about the fight. Charley tells Craig that he should apologize, and he agrees, but he doesn’t. Shep tells Molly that he told Craig about the rumor he heard without ill intent, but that Craig brought it up at the party with ill intent. Austen is still more likely to forgive Craig first because that’s the weird relationship they have.

    Finally, Austen has Rodrigo come over with his two new kittens, who were part of a litter from Rodrigo’s cat. One is named Martini and the other is named Piper, just so that in a full-circle Southern Charm moment, Austen can shout, “Piper, noooooo!” at the cat like Parker Posey in The White Lotus. As he’s talking about Shep and Craig both talking about him behind his back, he realizes that maybe they’re not his friends after all. As he says this, Martini and Piper are tottering their way along the couch cushions, still not entirely confident in their bodies, still not afraid of the world and all their horrors. ’Tini walks right into Austen’s lap, mewing up at him like she has a message, something deep to tell him. When he reaches out to touch her, she rolls herself up and folds herself over, tucking her whole body so that it fits in Austen’s meaty hand. That’s all she had to tell him, that was the entire message, and it’s one that Austen hasn’t received in a long time.

    Brian Moylan

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  • Stranger Things Recap: To Catch a Demogorgon

    Stranger Things

    The Turnbow Trap

    Season 5

    Episode 3

    Editor’s Rating

    3 stars

    The group pulls a classic Home Alone on a Demogorgon, with mixed results.
    Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

    We’re three episodes in, and already, I am concerned about people’s sleep (or lack thereof). Admittedly, I’m always worried about whether people are getting enough sleep across all aspects of life because sleep is so important, especially for these teens! The initial crawl that went to shit was the night before, and there are no signs anyone is sneaking a nap anytime soon. The sleep deprivation, however, might explain why our group’s plans are getting more ludicrous by the hour. “The Turnbow Trap” and the plan it refers to really stretch the suspension of disbelief, but it is exciting to watch, so stretch it we will.

    The other reason the crew’s plans are getting wilder and riskier is, as Will points out, because they don’t have time to play it safe. Now that Will knows he is tapping into the hive mind and getting glimpses of what Vecna can see, he and Robin have figured out that Vecna plans on kidnapping more children and his next victim is Dipshit Derek Turnbow. Don’t come at me for being mean about a little kid — everyone calls him that. And he is, in fact, a real dipshit. Not even Holly can stand Derek, and Holly seems pretty chill, aside from being so easily tricked by an evil wizard monster and blindly trusting a man no one else can see. Except for Hopper and Eleven, the whole team meets back at the Squawk to figure out what’s next.

    It’s very sweet to see Will leading the discussions. He and Joyce do eventually have a heart-to-heart about their current dynamic, and Joyce apologizes for being overbearing but admits she is still carrying a lot of guilt and fear from the time he was taken. “What kind of mother doesn’t check on her 11-year-old?” she says. Winona forever, you know? She can let Will spread his wings to a point, but she is always going to be watching and looking out for him. I swear to God if Joyce sacrifices herself for Will at the end of this thing, I will be crying for days.

    But now that Will knows about his connection to Vecna, and they know about Dipshit Derek, they need to figure out a way to protect him. Of course, it would be nice if they could figure out a way to protect Derek that would somehow help them in their search for Holly. And Mike might just have a way. Sure, it involves kidnapping an entire family, but it’s kidnapping to save lives, so Joyce, the only real adult in the room, is fine with it.

    So, yes, Robin (with her new buddy Will) knows exactly where to find a whole bunch of benzos from the hospital, thanks to all the time she’s been spending there with Vickie. Then, they’re going to bake those benzos into a pie. Lucas and Mike have enlisted Erica — you knew she’d pop up at some point — who is best friends with Derek’s sister Tina, to be their inside woman. There is one small hiccup: Twelve days ago, they turned from best friends to archenemies because of some incident in gym and also because it’s middle school and that’s their prerogative. Still, Erica is on board once Mike explains that this isn’t really about Derek, it’s about saving Holly, and also, what they’re asking her to do will surely make it so Tina never wants anything to do with her again. A real win-win-win. That third win is for us because Lucas informs us that every member of the Turnbows is a menace, and he is not wrong. Knock ’em all out, I say. (Safely, of course.)

    Erica’s the perfect person to send in to the Turnbows. She fakes a very sincere-sounding apology and offers Tina’s favorite pie as an olive branch. She’s also able to problem-solve quickly when Tina refuses to eat the pie, and though Tina’s parents and Derek have all passed out as planned, she needs a quick shot to put her to sleep. Erica has no problem administering this. (Is Erica a psychopath?)

    Aside from the Tina debacle, surprisingly, almost everything else goes according to plan. Joyce, Robin, and Will take the now-fast-asleep Turnbows to a farm across town. The team shoves pillowcases on all of the Turnbows’ heads to make sure that even if they wake, Vecna can’t figure out where they’re hiding. Meanwhile, the rest of the team sets up a trap for the Demogorgon they’re sure Vecna will send for Derek once he’s believed to be fast-asleep. The goal is to get the Demogorgon in their trap long enough for Nancy to shoot a tracker into it, and then they’ll be able to follow the tracker on Dustin’s device, which will hopefully lead to Vecna and thus to Holly. The plan includes a mannequin in Derek’s bed, water balloons full of acetone to make the Demo highly flammable, some wood beams to injure the thing, and, yes, a giant square cut out of the living room floor so the monster falls down into the barbed-wire pit below, where Nancy can shoot it with the telemetry-tag tracker before Jonathan lights that baby on fire.

    It all goes according to plan, more or less. It’s once the Demo takes off that there’s a problem. Our tracking team consists of Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan in Steve’s now-souped-up BMW (do not even get me started on that), and the Demo is moving fast in the Upside Down. Steve has to blow through some fences and people’s backyards to keep up with it. Suddenly, Dustin sees on his equipment that the Demo has changed course — it has doubled back the way they came and is heading southeast quickly.

    It’s Will who figures out what went wrong. Derek is awake and has managed to get the pillowcase off his head. It’s too late, he tells the group: Vecna knows where they are, and the Demogorgon is on its way. Dipshit Derek is really living up to his name.

    Obviously, time is of the essence here, but it would be swell if the team up top could figure out a way to reestablish communication with Hopper and Eleven in the Upside Down. Those two are acting on theories they’ve hatched without updated intel, and it could prove dangerous.

    We find the two of them still at the wall, but whatever that thing is made out of or whatever it’s hiding, they can’t figure out a way through; El’s powers aren’t strong enough to crack it open. They run out of time exploring it anyway. The military shows up, and they have a fancy new toy they refer to as “the hedgehog” — it emits some type of sonic blast that turns out to be El’s kryptonite (Hop’s word, not mine). As soon as it reaches her, she doubles over in pain. She can barely move, she can’t think, and she certainly can’t use her powers against it. This is a game changer.

    Hopper hides them behind a collapsed billboard and tries to keep El as quiet as possible, but she is hurting. The incident almost ends without them getting noticed, but one of the military guys, Sullivan’s right-hand man, Akers, stops to take a piss on the wall and discovers a knife Hopper accidentally left behind. They turn up the power on the hedgehog, and El screams out in pain. The soldiers realize who’s there, and a shoot-out commences. I guess Hopper has been training with Eleven because he’s basically Rambo now. His grenades kill most of the soldiers, and he’s able to shoot at the hedgehog and disable it — a powered-up Eleven knocks out Akers, the last soldier standing.

    Instead of just running for it, Hopper and Eleven take Akers prisoner. Hopper wants to interrogate him for info on when the next supply run is coming through so that he and Eleven can get unflipped, as it were. Eleven hates this idea — she wants to interrogate him about the wall. If he peed on it, he probably has some idea of what it is, and she is desperate to get through it. The father and daughter decide to compromise. Halfway happy, remember?

    Hopper gets the face-to-face with Akers, but while he’s asking the guy for info that he really does not want to give up, Eleven is rummaging around in his brain. The soldier is terrified, begging her to get out of his head, but El’s very good at this now. She winds up in a memory of his in which he and Sullivan talk to Dr. Kay in her lab. She’s able to follow Dr. Kay down a secured hallway with a big, metal door at the end. It’s locked tight, like a vault, and Hopper presses, but Akers is adamant he doesn’t know what’s behind the door. It doesn’t matter. Once El bounces out of his head, she tells Hopper she could feel the kryptonite coming from behind the door, stronger than the machine the soldiers were driving around with. She thinks it has to be coming from someone with powers like hers — it has to be Vecna. She is convinced the military has him and is using him as a weapon. It certainly seems impossible, since we know Vecna has been freely moving around in his victims’ minds. So who or what is behind that door?

    So far, we’ve done a lot of chatting about Vecna and his plans, but do we see him in action at all in this episode? Sure do. Well, at least, we see him in his Henry Creel skin, being the most thoughtful host to Holly. He’s brought her to some vision or memory or other dimension-type place where the Creel house is shiny and new and contains everything Holly could want (aside from her parents, who Henry swears he’ll bring over once they’re healed). There’s a gorgeous breakfast with her favorite foods and all the dresses she could want, and he even gives her a tape player and a Tiffany cassette. He has to leave for the day — other children to kidnap, one assumes! — and gives Holly free rein, only warning her to never go out into the woods. (Let’s forget, I guess, that if this is Vecna’s world, couldn’t he, like, fix it so she can’t go into the woods? I’m just asking questions here!!)

    Holly seems content to have some me time. But it doesn’t take too long for someone to start ringing that doorbell. When Holly opens the door, no one is there, but there’s a letter inside the mailbox. The note seems to be Henry asking for her help, but he needs her to meet him out by the rocks, which are, of course, through the woods. He even drew a handy map. Holly honestly seems like a smart kid, but she’s being real dumb at the moment. None of this adds up if you think about it for more than ten seconds, but still, Holly goes on her journey through the woods. (She is dressed like a hybrid Dorothy/Little Red, after all.)

    She reaches the rocks, but instead of finding Henry, she thinks she sees a monster in the cave, and so makes a run for it. It is not a monster who runs after her, though; it’s someone in boots and jeans. And when Holly looks up, she finds Max Mayfield staring back down at her. Max lives — I mean, in this vision-memory-mind trap Vecna has built. But still: Max lives.

    • Listen, I know Dustin is acting out because of his grief, but he’s so mean! There’s only so many times you can accept “he’s misplacing his anger over the loss of one brother figure and putting it on to his other brother figure,” okay? When he just drills into Steve’s car to install the telemetry system? What an asshole. These two better make up — it’s already become insufferable.

    • Steve does clock Dustin lying to his friends about how he got so bloodied and bruised, so maybe he’ll be instigating an emotional chat sooner rather than later.

    • Speaking of insufferable, Jonathan is really brooding over this Nancy thing. As suspected, Murray snuck an engagement ring in that Coltrane cassette and is confused when he discovers Jonathan hasn’t popped the question yet. That proposal is going to be a disaster, isn’t it?

    • During the interrogation, Hopper screams at Akers that he would kill a thousand soldiers “to protect the one person that [he] loves.” It might make you tear up for a second until you realize that’s a potent piece of information to just hand over to the enemy, Hop.

    • Ah! Another mention of wormholes! Mr. Clarke is teaching his class — which includes star student Erica Sinclair — about wormholes and the Einstein–Rosen bridge. In short: They’re very unstable!

    • Robin and Will have another moment together at the hospital when Will asks how she knew Vickie was interested in her. She talks to him about little signs snowballing into an avalanche. They also make some jokes about Will’s bowl cut, which is nice for us.

    • Bring back calling people “barf bags”!!

    Maggie Fremont

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  • Survivor Recap: Idol Chatter

    Survivor

    Huge Dose of Bamboozle

    Season 49

    Episode 10

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    Photo: Robert Voets/CBS

    This is quickly turning into a season not about alliances but about voting blocs, and each of those blocs is always targeting each other, with at least one skilled player in the middle, taking turns eliminating each bloc’s power bit by bit. Strangely enough, that player is Sophie the Silent, who we didn’t even peep until about episode seven. But they’re all in danger of being subsumed by the man, the myth, the legend, R-I-Z-G-O-D, whose lame grandstanding and credit-taking is likely to derail all of their games just because he’s the flashiest and thirstiest among the group. He didn’t do much this episode, yet at tribal council, he’s the one looking like the hero in front of the jury.

    The episode starts with Sage telling Jawan about Kristina’s idol and then, later, telling Sophie about it as well. Steven made the cardinal sin of telling Sage to gain trust with her. This reminds me of something Sandra Diaz-Twine, the great goddess of strategy, once said: an idol people know about is completely worthless. (I believe she said this on Australian Survivor, which Jeff Probst doesn’t want Americans to see.) The more the information gets out, the more people play around it. Even if a player “wastes” it, then it can save them for a vote while a large coalition mitigates for it, but then it’s effectiveness is done. It can’t really be used to advance a player or a group in the game, like when Parvati Shallow turned the numbers on their head by playing two of them.

    After her ally, Alex, was voted out last episode, Kristina is having a tough time trusting anyone on the island and truly being comfortable in the game. This comes to a head at the reward challenge, where Jeff asks her how she’s doing, and she goes through the five stages of grief in about 60 seconds. “I want my mom. I want my mom so bad right now,” she yells, adding that her mother died a few years ago. “And I don’t have her anymore. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair!” Jeff asks Kristina to tell him about her mother, and she shares some stories, and, honestly, it was a touching moment. Kristina then crawled through a balance beam, almost her whole body in the water, as she slithered onto the platform to try to help her team win a reward. Though she got the swell of inspirational moments and kind words from Jeff (rare for a woman who is not doing well in a challenge), it was all for naught.

    The winning team is Soph, Sophie, Sage, and Steven, who get to go to The Sanctuary (say it all together, “Where schmood schmings schmappen!!”) and eat hamburgers and hot dogs, and Sage gets to launch her plan with Sophie about getting Savannah out of the game. Going into the immunity challenge there are two factions. The trio of Rizo, Soph, and Savannah wants to team up with Jawan and Sage to get out Steven, who they think is a challenge threat and far too likable because he is an endless source of space facts. Sage has other plans. She wants to draw in her ally Jawan, along with Steven, Kristina, and Sophie, to get rid of Savannah, whom she can’t stand, and who everyone is afraid of winning immunity once again.

    Before the immunity challenge, there is a brief intermission when we are entertained by the “musical” stylings of a boy band called 3 Boyz on a Bench. It’s just the remaining three men pretending to rap but mostly just saying “3 Boyz on a Bench,” to a beat repeatedly. I do like the name of their songs — “Don’t Blindside Me Baby,” “You Drive Me Coconuts,” and “I Got Sand in All the Wrong Places” — though I’m not entirely sure if I would like the tunes of any of them.

    The immunity challenge is a classic obstacle course where players have to run through the “teeter tunnel,” which was Jeff’s nickname in college, get a bunch of discs off a pole, free the handle underneath, and then use the handle to run puzzle pieces across a balance beam, and then make the classic Survivor logo puzzle. Steven does the best at the puzzle piece balancing, but he is quickly outpaced by Sophie, who wins the challenge. This might be to her detriment because now she’s back in the spotlight as a challenge beast who they might have to send home.

    I’ve realized that Survivor is a little bit like an episode of Law & Order. Just as the first main suspect is never the person who did it, the first plan you hear about after the immunity challenge is not the person getting sent home. In this case, we’re hearing a lot about Steven and Savannah, but then Steven and Kristina talk about using her idol on Steven to prevent him from going home. They want to split their votes between Savannah and Rizo so that if Rizo gets spooked and plays his idol for Savannah or himself, one or the other is going home. Sage has this great master plan that after this tribe, Savannah will go home, Rizo will use his idol, and Kristina will use hers. She is only going to get one of those three things accomplished.

    That is because Sophie can’t be trusted, at least by Sage and her group. She tells Savannah that Jawan and Sage are going to flip and that Kristina has an idol. The problem is that if Sophie votes with Rizo, Soph, and Savannah, that is only four, which forces a tie. As word of that idol spreads, Soph considers using her Knowledge Is Power to get it for herself. Savannah also reveals that she has an extra vote, so with Sophie, they can turn themselves into the majority rather than just having a tie.

    Then Savannah gets an idea. What if, instead of going for Steven or Kristina, who could block their votes with a deft play of an idol, why not go after the flip-floppers and target Sage and Jawan? Savannah is keen to get out Sage because she knows Sage is coming for her and is smart enough to realize Sage is the real mastermind behind all these plans. They pose the question to Sophie, who, as the swing vote, they want to give the power to make the decision. She says she thinks Jawan has a better shot because he’s more likable but still wants to target Steven because she’s afraid that he might have a better shot of beating her at challenges.

    Going into tribal, the viewers are in a great position because we’re unclear of just who will use their advantages and how, what effect that might have on the vote, who might catch a stray, and who, exactly, will go home. But, again, we know all of the allegiances, who is voting with whom, who betrayed whom, and why. We also know that Jeff Probst is going to get the kind of Advantage-apalooza that he loves, with everyone emptying their pockets of their trinkets to stay in the game. What I most fear is another of Jeff’s favorite things, a live tribal. God, how I hate getting out of their seats and whispering.

    Luckily, we’re spared that, and the trouble is mostly a bunch of people making vague statements about how they can’t trust anyone. It’s after the votes are tallied that we start to get the fireworks. First, Kristina pulls an idol out of her hair and gives it to Jeff to block Steven. Rizo has been fingering a set of beads the whole time and gets up, heading towards Jeff to ask if he can say a few words. “I feel like a lot has happened and I feel like this vote is truly going to show who is with me and who is not,” he says. “I have to do my best to protect myself in this game and for that very reason, I’m playing it for Savannah.”

    Then Jeff shocks us by saying that it isn’t a real immunity idol. Seriously, dude, WT-effing-F. He did all of that to psyche everyone out, to rub their noses in it, to make some kind of grandstanding about how he wants to play an idol; he knows their plan is for Savannah, but actually, he doesn’t need it because he feels safe. He’s rubbing their noses in the fact that he knows something they don’t. In the immortal words of Jawan, who is about to walk out the door, “Playa, play the real thing.”

    The votes are read, and for a minute, I’m thinking that my girl Sage is definitely about to take the long walk to Ponderosa. Then the votes pour in for Savannah and Jawan, sending Jawan packing and showing Kristina that she “wasted” her idol. Jawan asks who did this and Sophie, Soph, Rizo, and Savannah all raise their hands. But it’s what happens next that they should all be afraid of. Rizo jumps to his feet and tells Jawan to bring it in and give him a hug. “You flipped on me once. I wasn’t going to let it happen again,” he says. This is a major problem that all of his allies should be wary of. He had nothing to do with this move. Sophie brought them the information, and Savannah and Sophie decided to flip it on Sage and Jawan. Rizo played a fake idol, made a big scene, and then said, “I wasn’t going to let it happen again.” Not “we,” “I” singular. He’s hogging the spotlight and taking credit and I hope that, as Sophie manipulates the blocs for them to decimate each other, they come for him next.

    Brian Moylan

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  • Down Cemetery Road Recap: Strangers on a Train

    Last week was all about the emotional toll killing people, rescuing people, and discovering people-killers has taken on our motley crew. This week is all about action. As we near the finale, tensions are mounting to a fever pitch. We’re entering the part of the story which should compel a reader to read while walking, and the show delivers in creating a viewing experience that replicates that hold on the viewer’s attention. The highlight of the episode — if not of the series as a whole — is the chase sequence on the train to Scotland, when Zoë escapes from Amos’s grip within an inch of her life.

    We left off last week with Amos’s realization that he was being followed; now, he finds out who is following him. As it turns out, Axel’s main passion in life, besides killing people, was journaling. He made sure to include a photo of Zoë in his little red book, with a caption explaining she was Joe’s wife. In brute force, Zoë is no match for Amos — he could probably take her down with a stare. But unfortunately for him, Amos is not as witty or charismatic. Zoë’s ability to connect with people saves her life.

    After making sure his gun is loaded with bullets and a silencer, Amos finds Zoë. He sits across from her just as a PSA advises passengers to alert the authorities if they see something suspicious. Zoë has a better idea: she strikes up a conversation with the chatty American couple sitting next to them. She introduces herself as Julia — Amos picks the alias “Andy” — to Bob and Shelley, and, noticing that Bob is carrying Bananagrams like any self-respecting American looking to have a good time, she asks them to play a game. She takes Bob up on his promise that he can “play all night,” hoping to ward off Amos. But Amos waits patiently until Bob and Shelley decide to go to bed. When Shelley wants to take a picture with them, Amos pushes “Julia” in and offers to be the photographer.

    Zoë follows the couple to their cabin, then begins the hard work of losing Amos. A train is an excellent stage for a chase sequence; from Skyfall to this year’s Highest 2 Lowest, some of the most memorable chasing in cinematic history happens on trains. It’s a great setting because there is only one way to go, and leaving a person’s sight is hard when you’re essentially walking down a long hallway. But Zoë manages to hide behind people, suitcases, and, eventually, inside a staff room. I was worried when she locked herself in, because even though Amos’s shoulder is injured, he looks strong enough to break down a door. If Zoë found herself locked in a room alone with Amos, it’d be game over; the genius of being in Bob and Shelley’s company was that it precluded Amos from acting. But all’s well that ends well. A conductor catches up to Amos and asks if he’s having trouble finding his room. He seems to consider shooting the conductor, too, but gives up. He knows that Zoë is headed to his same destination, after all, and it’d be much more convenient to kill her somewhere private.

    Zoë finds an available empty cabin. She gets a FaceTime call from Morgue-Boy Wayne, who sends along the decrypted video evidence that the British government used chemical weapons on its own troops. Zoë asks him to find out where exactly in Scotland Dr. Wright tested on his guinea pigs. Wayne delivers just in time, telling her to go to Firinn Village. Amos, who knows they are close by, sets off the fire alarm, so the train has to evacuate. He takes off in a stolen taxi, unluckily for Shelley and Bob, who have the misfortune of being his passengers. They try to get him to stop the car, even threaten to call the police, but their questions are too grating for Amos, who shoots them both.

    Genius twisted mind that he has, Amos uses the killings as an opportunity. Though he sees Zoë’s taxi drive by, there is no chance he could’ve seen her inside, given how far he was standing from it and how fast the car was going — yet, when it comes to being a psycho, Amos always knows what to do. In an Oscar-worthy performance, he calls the police, crying to report two dead bodies on the side of the road. He describes a woman he saw running off: spiky short hair, a leather jacket, and big boots. He wipes his fingerprints from the surfaces of the car and heads off — the teddy bear is only a little more than 14 miles away.

    Zoë’s cab driver, who was already annoyed, only becomes more irritated when she tells him to go past the village and towards a disused army base Wayne texts her about. The car takes a right on a fork where Sarah took a left, toward the village. She is walking around because Downey took off in Ella’s car and left her sleeping in the woods. It’s little wonder Downey wanted to shed the deadweight after last week’s performance, but there is a deeper motivation, too: Downey doesn’t want another death on his conscience, particularly not when he and Sarah have developed something resembling friendship. When she asks him, the night before he leaves, if he thinks they are close (to finding Dinah), his first instinct is to interpret that emotionally — like, emotionally close. That’s a long way from the guy who could barely look Sarah in the eye in their hotel room, all that time ago.

    So that’s four of our crew in Scotland and headed to Firinn — we’re only missing Malik, who is put on a chopper by a very disappointed-looking C. He surprises Malik while he is walking his dog, telling him that Amos is very much alive and leading Downey to Dinah. C prepares him for the trip by telling him that if he isn’t able to deal with “whoever or whatever is left,” he won’t be able to keep him around much longer, though it’s unclear whether that means getting fired or killed. Either way, at least C gives Malik a gun, with instructions to take out Amos, Downey, or both, and some parting words of encouragement. He sort of tenderly grabs Malik’s chin and says, “Strike like a cobra.” Right, because Malik is renowned for his stealth.

    C is only human, so he has to deal with his own boss, Talia, who wants his input on a “big important speech” about the budgeting plans we’ve been hearing about. Talia is practicing it, clad in athleisure, when C arrives. She wants C to tell her how she should respond when and if a journalist asks about the British government’s stance on and development of chemical weapons. “The weapons industry is the most regulated in the world,” is his recommendation. “I would suggest we don’t give space to speculation.” A perfect example of how to say absolutely nothing while sounding like you’re saying something — hopefully some attentive journalist will catch it and push back.

    Firinn Village is picturesque and the people are friendly. A shopkeeper tells Sarah that local teenagers are stealing her booze and cigarettes and going to an old army base nearby, the very same one where Zoë is headed. This is the first of a few too-happy coincidences that zip some of this episode’s strength, but at least Sarah is on her way. She sees Ella’s car empty and locked on the side of a road, but there’s no sign of Michael. We don’t see much of him this week, but we do see that he is down to one Histropine pill. It’s all going to hit the fan at the same time.

    Realizing this, Sarah literally runs to the base. The scariest thing that happens there is that she runs into a group of taunting teenage boys, the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. Sarah follows some clanging sounds, and we cut to Dinah’s holding room, where the two guys, Nev and Ty, play soccer. The ball knocks over a folder of photos of the chemical burns, which they, along with Steph, are just seeing for the first time. This is another detail that doesn’t seem totally earned. After days spent locked away, not being told what they’re waiting for or what’s going on, wouldn’t they have at least snooped around? Anyway, they see a shadow coming through the CCTV. We think it’s going to be Sarah, but it turns out to be the provisioner, who is greeted with two guns pointed at him.

    Sarah herself was preparing to use the foldable knife she took from Paula’s if necessary when she turned a corner to find Zoë. It’s not what she wanted, but it was what she needed. When Sarah slumps on the floor and says she wants to give up and go home, Zoë reminds her that she can’t. One, she’s in way too deep; two, there’s nothing guaranteeing she can make it back to Oxford alive — in fact, all evidence is pointing to the contrary. Zoë shows her the video to galvanize her: They are this close. 

    Zoë and Sarah decide to discreetly find out from the villagers where the experiments were conducted. In a pub, Sarah finds the shopkeeper from earlier doing crosswords with the bartender. They talk about the “army types” that come through the town under Sarah’s guise as a “military nerd.” Meanwhile, on the dock, Zoë overhears the provisioners say something about being paid to keep quiet. Out of all the convenient coincidences in the back half of this episode, I found this one most grating. Zoë’s biggest weapon is her ability to make people tell her things they probably shouldn’t. Why not have her outwit these guys?

    At the pub, Sarah notices that the map on the Puffin tour pamphlet she took from the bartender is missing an island when compared to the map that hangs on the wall — bingo. Putting her dormant restorationist skills to use, she traces where the island is supposed to be on the pamphlet, and is almost out the door before she hears the bartender pick up a call from Callum, the police officer at the scene of Bob and Shelley’s murder. We saw him a little bit earlier with his colleague, who found the picture of the couple with Zoë in Shelley’s purse. He gives the bartender Zoë’s description and asks her to keep an eye out. Overhearing this conversation — annoyingly written to give Sarah every piece of information she needs — Sarah runs to tell Zoë the police are looking for her because of two dead Americans. Zoë seems to register immediately that it must be Shelley and Bob, which makes her cry. But they have an invisible island to find. All they need now is a boat.

    So, they get one. A captain standing by tells them it’s too windy to go out for a tour, even when they lie that it’s their honeymoon and insist they have strong sea legs. Sarah is at the absolute end of her wits. She shoves the old guy inside the hull, takes his keys, and locks him into his cabin. Zoë gives her a look like, Good for you, girl, which is all Sarah has ever wanted to hear. She takes the helm as they drive forward to try and find the island. Amos has his own menacing black dinghy waiting for him on black-sanded shores. Downey has his own boat, too. Everyone is en route, Malik by chopper, the rest by sea. The question as we head into next week is: Who’s going to get there first? 

    Rafaela Bassili

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  • The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Recap: Ladies Who Punch

    After all the relitigation and denial about what happened on the plane, the wives’ ability to resolve this conflict is unprecedented.
    Photo: Natalie Cass/Bravo

    Did Mary’s church service help to heal (or “hill” if you’re Whitney) our fractured group? Of course not, but one can dream! Maybe they’ll have better luck at the post-service Sunday Social that Mary is hosting for them all at our favorite Salt Lake jaunt: Valter’s. “Oh, your guests are here,” Angie tells Mary when Meredith and Lisa walk in, so then again, maybe not. But at least Mary is gifting them all beta fish as party favors!

    The only person missing from the lunch is Britani, whom Mary called ahead of time to explain that she was snubbing her because she called her ungodly. Britani ultimately apologized, and while it didn’t earn her an invite, it did inspire Mary to think that there might be hope for this group yet.

    So let’s get into it. We’ve heard what all the other women say happened, but Meredith maintains that they’re blowing it out of proportion — so where do we go from here? When Meredith says she couldn’t have tormented Britani the whole flight because she watched two movies, the women begin investigating. What movies? “Crazy Rich Asians, and one other movie I don’t recall the name of,” she says. Rough start. And what happened at the end of Crazy Rich Asians? Genius question. “I don’t remember,” she says. Meredith, you shouldn’t be answering any more of these questions without a lawyer present! “Crazy Rich Asians has a big ending. It’s a big moment, you’ll remember,” Heather says. This is one of the funniest gotcha moments I’ve ever seen on Housewives. Since Lisa watched it too, they ask her if she remembers how it ends, and without hesitation (but with a spoiler alert warning from Bravo), Lisa rattles off the movie’s ending. “I obviously fell asleep before the end because I didn’t see that part,” Meredith chimes in, trying to cover her ass.

    Since Lisa continues to downplay the situation, they tell her that she clearly realized how big a scene it was, and that’s why she didn’t go through customs with them. But Lisa says that was just because she didn’t realize she had Global Entry. Alright, if we’re investigating whether Lisa Barlow has Global Entry to get to the bottom of this mystery, I fear we’re too far gone.

    Meredith then directs her ire to Whitney (as she is wont to do), after hearing that she was gossiping about this incident behind her back (as Whitney is wont to do). Specifically, Whitney told Bronwyn that she was drinking before the flight and wondered whether she blacked out. She proposed three explanations for the incident: “she has hatred in her heart, an anger problem, or a problem mixing substances.” She’s like if Hercule Poirot were a Real Housewife.

    The lunch leaves them with little resolution, and leaves Meredith ally-less, apart from Lisa, whom she meets up with for manicures in spa chairs that I’m convinced get bigger each time we cut back to them. They debrief the lunch, with Meredith expressing her frustration with Heather and Whitney, especially, before Lisa tells her that she met up with Britani to hear her side of things. We flashback to that sit-down, where we hear Britani say, “It was literally, like, the sixth worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.” It’s a sentence that stopped me dead in my tracks. The level of specificity instantly grips me. What were the other five things? And does she have a notes app ranking them? All in all, Meredith basically says she pities Britani and thus is fine to move forward from all of this.

    Then, in a jump cut for the ages, we find ourselves in a U-Haul that Whitney is driving to Heather’s house, where she finds her buzzin’ cousin dressed for a funeral. Specifically, the funeral for her marital mattress, which Whitney is helping her haul away. While she assures us that the stains aren’t from sex, I’m more disturbed by her confession that she’s had the mattress for 20 years. That seems like much too long. She talks about Meredith being mad at her, and Whitney talks about being angry at Bronwyn for ratting, but all I can think about is that geriatric mattress.

    While Britani is still recovering from the plane ride (and I suspect will be for seasons to come), she says it helped her focus on what’s truly important: healing her relationship with her daughter, Olivia. And now, thankfully, they’re getting professional help and are deciding to give a family therapist a real run for her money. It’s mostly a rehash of what we already know, but Olivia says she feels better hearing her mother take accountability, and Britani is happy to finally get the chance to make things right, so this situation seems to be looking up.

    Speaking of mothers and daughters, Bronwyn, Gwen, and Muzzy (and their bobs) spend the afternoon trimming Bonsai trees. Both Gwen and Muzzy say that they’re getting ready to spread their wings and move out, which sends Bronwyn — who has never really lived alone in her entire life — spiraling. You might be thinking, well, doesn’t she still have Todd? But perhaps that’s the problem. Without her whole family under that roof with her, she’s left taking a cold, hard look at her marriage, and she might not like what she sees. After all, if she’s mourning her emotionally abusive mother of all people moving out, then you know things must be rough.

    The episode concludes with a meeting so shocking that I wondered if perhaps I was the one who blacked out after combining substances. Meredith and Britani reunite — on the ground this time — at a park, as if producers were afraid they’d destroy a home or place of business. Meredith kicks things off by apologizing to Britani for being overheard talking to Lisa on the plane, saying it was the wrong place and time and that she didn’t intend to hurt her feelings. This feels almost too good to be true, as if a Bravo HR representative is standing just off camera, holding up cue cards.

    While Britani says she still feels traumatized, she’s choosing forgiveness. And for her part, she apologizes for bringing up the TikTok in the first place, admitting that it was a shady move meant to hurt her. I almost can’t believe what I’m watching. After all this hubbub sent shockwaves throughout the group, the two of them can sit down and communicate in the name of civility. This kind of resiliency and ability to move forward is what makes this show so successful. As I watch them sit across from one another, I’m reminded of a song made famous by Britani Bateman singing it on TikTok…

    And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness for the things I’ve done you blame me for…
    But then, I guess we know there’s blame to share
    And none of it seems to matter anymore. 

    Tom Smyth

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  • The Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

    I can’t believe it’s been over six years since the infamous barn fight between Candiace and Monique. It honestly feels like a lifetime ago that we saw Monique latch onto Candiace’s wig and summarily fight her way out of a job, but in retrospect, not all that much has changed. Sure, everyone is divorced now, and Candiace has taken her talents for histrionics out of the music studio and into the podcast mic for the time being — but we have the same President, Ashley remains as messy as ever, and Gizelle still won’t bring a man on camera. Some truths remain immutable in the Potomac universe.

    I can be honest and admit that at the time, I was a bit clouded in my distaste for Candiace’s antics in a way that probably let me give Monique a bit too much grace about the situation. For one, the franchises are no strangers to violence: RHONJ occasionally serves as a WWE undercard, depending on the season; Salt Lake City has thrown more drinks in people’s faces than Susan Lucci; and Atlanta couldn’t even keep a slumber party peaceful. During this period, the ladies of Potomac still held onto a delusional pretense that they represented a specific style of Black upper-class genteel that had long been abandoned – the cast may be products of Jack and Jill, but the show is no The Gilded Age. And so once the fight actually aired, over a year after the fiasco had already leaked to the press, we spent an entire season being beaten over the head with the insistence that the cast was above this.

    While I can now recognize that what Monique did was an unacceptable escalation of interpersonal issues in a workplace (which is what the show is, after all), her reunion performance will remain an all-time moment in not just Potomac, but Housewives history simply because she broke the show. Fully knowing she was on her way out, she summarily dismissed Gizelle with the binder moment that aired all over the world (Karen asking “is Jamal coming” with sardonic satisfaction remains etched in my cerebellum), but more importantly forced everyone to acknowledge that despite her being the deserved target of the reunion, all of the women have skeletons in their closet that they were unwilling to confront. Gizelle was reunited with a man who had embarrassed her numerous times with his penchant for skirt-chasing; Robyn was in an endless engagement with a now-husband who, then and now, seemed to barely humor her; Karen is a sugar-baby turned breadwinner who could be found at any watering hole in Potomac; Ashley was married to the personification of the grim reaper.

    All of the women were trapped in their own cages of misery, trying to make Monique look like the primary cause for their own distress. Monique very much needed to leave, but the chaos she left behind, while occasionally resulting in uneven, stilted television, forced the women to acknowledge their own shortcomings in her absence. Ashley could no longer hide her disaster of a marriage; Robyn’s permanent state of melancholy became unavoidable; Chris Bassett was unable to hold a job longer than a season. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that women seem to be in 10 seasons is at least partially influenced by Monique wiping the slate clean on her first ousting.

    Monique’s penchant for forthrightness, almost to the point of abruptness, is what makes her reintegration to the cast fascinating already. Thankfully, she makes no bones about addressing the elephant in the room, namely, the state of her divorce. It is no secret that Housewives can be taxing on any marriage, but often we hear it from the perspective of women who come on the show to build a career and a platform to split safely. Monique, however, freely admits that being on the show kept her marriage alive for years longer than it should have. Judging from her original run on the franchise, I fully believe that she held onto her marriage out of spite; at that time, there was no way she was going to let Gizelle have one up on her, and the image of her successful Black family with numerous houses, investments, and businesses was her ultimate trump card.

    It was refreshing to hear the women reflect on that time without the show turning into a forlorn “very special episode.” Gizelle being able to acknowledge the strain she recognized in Monique’s marriage coming from the side of a divorcee is a conversation Monique simply would not have been able to receive five years ago, and I think it’s healthy that both women recognize that. I don’t know if we’ll get Gizelle to admit on camera that Monique gave her a run for her money at that reunion, but we’ll take the small victories where we can.

    Unfortunately, Gizelle and Monique finally finding common ground is not the animating vehicle they are using to structure Monique’s return to the group. Nor are Monique and Wendy finally attempting to establish a relationship outside of Candiace’s sphere of influence after Monique was effectively removed from filming on Wendy’s rookie season. For whatever reason that I am still desperately attempting to make sense of, we are continuing to draw out this tired string of “Stacy being desperate for Chris.”

    Listen, I get it. Stacey is definitely nimble with her understanding of the truth. I have dated enough men who told me they had no girlfriend, only to find out they actually had a wife (this has happened only three times, but it’s crazy that it happened more than once), so I recognize a person whose statements of fact come with terms and conditions. But here’s the thing: I don’t care that she fucked Chris, or didn’t. I don’t care that her husband, Temu, barely wants to be on camera and filming with the rest of the cast, or that they are too lazy to come up with coherent excuses to avoid participating in events. Temu says five words a minute, and to my ADHD brain, it feels like nails on a chalkboard; I won’t miss him if he doesn’t get mic’ed up ever again.

    What Stacey understands well is that if you are not going to give authenticity, you have to sell the fantasy. Stacey has chosen to be the peppy, out-of-touch model who has the spirit of Mary Poppins in the package of Kenya Moore. Whether or not it’s legitimate is irrelevant to me until it fundamentally becomes irreconcilable with her on-camera persona, à la Grande Dame. Perhaps it’s the QVC training, the same stomping grounds that birthed us the scourge known as Lisa Rinna, but you simply cannot move her off her square.

    Stacey’s consistent persona ultimately makes the women look even more deranged for calling it out. Monique already said she couldn’t possibly care less who Chris is dating, but Ashley, Keiarna, Tia, and Gizelle simply couldn’t leave well enough alone. Now I have to pretend that I care that Stacey told Chris that Monique was miserable by the end of her marriage? I’m sure that’s nothing Chris doesn’t already know, whether this Cookie lady is reporting back to him or not. Considering how the last fiasco with a third party bringing gossip went down, I just am not intrigued or inclined to explore this line of inquiry any further unless Stacey ups and leaves Temu for Chris.

    All these shenanigans ultimately end up doing is cementing Stacey as indispensable to the group. I can somewhat understand Tia’s frustration — despite overselling the Nigerian royalty bit, she has, for the most part, been sharing her personal life on camera, warts and all, and is frustrated that Stacey won’t do the same. But Keiarna is getting irate on Monique’s behalf when there is absolutely no indication that Monique would even care or be bothered by this at all, and as a result, Stacey dealt with her accordingly. Keiarna may be a breathtaking beauty, but she was not prepared to step into the ring for a war of words with the Detroit Barbie. Stacey cheekily telling K that “the only time you get heated is about me” was a nice little jab, but when K tried to counter by saying “I would never leave my husband around you,” Stacey had no choice but to hit her with the uppercut: “You don’t have one.” I’m excited to see Keiarna finally show up this season, as I prefer a beautiful bitch on wheels to a sedate one, but unfortunately, she still came up short this time around. See you all next week!

    • The more Angel carries on about her imagined issue with Wendy, the less rational she sounds. Her husband can’t even pretend to be bothered about this nothingburger of an issue on his wife’s behalf. Every time she insists that Wendy somehow betrayed her more than Gizelle by defining what a catfish is, a clown nose starts to sprout on her face spontaneously. Wendy and Gizelle were indeed being messy and mean, but nothing about that warranted the weeks-long spiral our WAG has been going through.

    • Wendy was really rocking the finger waves! It’s such a shame that her best season to date is coming on the heels of what we know to be a precipitous downfall. (Yes, yes, I know she gave a gracious showing at BravoCon and had a generally good reception, but when your local paper is reporting claims of alleged aliases and over 40 credit cards, there is clearly still a long road ahead.)

    • When it comes to crossover moments, I allow/overlook them if they make sense for the show and the groups’ connections. The Vanderpump Boys on Summer House, sure, whatever, they basically helped launch that franchise. Cynthia making a guest appearance on any franchise she wants is fine because I appreciate any excuse to swoon over her cheekbones. Bringing in competitors from the Love Hotel, however, is where I have to draw the line. I’m sure Wale is a lovely man, but this isn’t Marvel, and I’m not about to start watching three other franchises just to understand what is on my TV screens. I already have to monitor the subreddits like a hawk!

    • At this point, “What is GNA” could be a Jeopardy category. We have gone from clothing line to wellness brand to events promotion to philanthropy, and now we’re making floats. Many companies do PRIDE floats, but they are usually selling something. What, pray tell, is GNA selling? I still have no clue.

    • Ten million downloads on Reasonably Shady? Y’all are really listening to that podcast? Color me shocked.

    Shamira Ibrahim

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  • Survivor Recap: Lost in Space

    Photo: Robert Voets/CBS

    I can’t believe the first thing that I’m going to say about Survivor 49 is that the man, the myth, the legend, R-I-Z-G-O-D, Rizgod, baby, might actually be a good Survivor player. Does this mean he’s one of the two from this season coming back for Survivor 50? (If I had to guess, I would say it’s down to Rizo, Savannah, Sage, or maybe Jawan.) The episode starts with Rizo and Savannah returning from a half-assed tribal council where only half of the people voted and they’re triumphant. Everyone at camp who didn’t vote thinks that Sophie would go home for being a challenge beast and that they would flush Rizo’s idol. Neither of those things happened. Instead, Rizo convinced everyone to eject MC, saying she had too many allies back at camp and that this was their chance to get rid of a strong competitor. By the end of the episode, he would sway yet another vote and continue to hold onto that idol that absolutely everyone knows about.

    Before the reward challenge, Sophie says something that really stuck with me. She’s upset that everyone assumed she would be going home, and that made her rethink her alliances. “My freshman floor friends are not my friends,” she says. Yes! Exactly that. I’ve written before about how three small tribes of six is an unmitigated disaster, and this sums it up perfectly. When you first arrive at college, you bond with those immediately around you out of survival. You’re new, you’re lonely, you want to do keg stands and hook up, and all of those other things college kids are supposed to do. But you slowly find out there are others out there who you gel with, who you have more in common with, and you leave those freshman floor friends for your real people. On a tribe of six people, you have to make those close connections for survival. But, because everyone on their tribe does the same, that is how you end up with “Hina Strong” throughout the game, because there are not enough available people to connect with who also want to connect with you. Players end up sticking to their original tribe not out of any real affinity but because of game mechanics.

    I’m glad that Sophie is coming out of that nightmare and wants to play her own game. As it stands right now, it seems like there are a few axes of power in the game, all of which think that they’re in control. There is Jawan and Sage, forged in their mutual hatred of Shannon, who have a close alliance that everyone knows about. There are Steven and Kristina, who were on their first two tribes together with Sophie, still hanging around the periphery. Then there are Rizo, Savannah, and Soph, who seem like the strongest group in the game, mainly because they have an idol, an extra vote, and a Knowledge Is Power, respectively. Alex is knowingly playing in between all of these groups and refusing to pick a side until he sees where things shake out.

    The reward challenge divides the group into two teams of four, with Soph sitting on the bench. The only remarkable thing is that Kristina’s team, with Sophie, Alex, and Savannah, wins the challenge, and Kristina decides to give her spot at the fried chicken dinner to Jawan, the only person left in the game who has not eaten real food at a reward. He doesn’t want to accept it, saying he doesn’t feel like he earned it. Finally, after some cajoling from the rest of the crowd, he says, “I think I want to eat the chicken, Uncle Jeff.”

    Let’s stop right there. Of all the things about the new era that I hate, the one I hate the most is calling Probst “Uncle Jeff” or, even worse, “Uncle J.” Yes, I know that we’ve all been watching this man on television for 25 years, and he feels a part of the family. However, Jeff is not your uncle, Jeff is not your brother, Jeff is not your friend. This man has you out there starving, running around in challenges, and voting each other out for his amusement. Also, Jeff is the one who keeps making the game harder. He’s taken away rice from the tribes, he has started stealing the flints of the losers, he is making it even harder to bargain for the basic necessities of life, and they think this guy is cute and cuddly? You’re absolutely crazy! I don’t think that Jeff would take kindly to being called “unc” in the modern sense if he knew that it meant everyone thinks he’s old.

    Before the immunity challenge, there are two schools of thought on who needs to go. Kristina and Steven are trying to whip people to get rid of Rizo because he has an idol. They want to split the vote between him and Savannah so that if he plays it, she catches the stray and gets sent packing. Sage is on board with that plan because she thinks that Savannah gives off “mean girl energy,” and that is just what I love about her. Rizo is working to convince Savannah, Soph, and the rest that Alex is dangerous because he’s playing in the middle. Jawan thinks that there are bigger fish to fry than Alex and wants to get rid of Savannah.

    The immunity challenge has players holding up a heavy disc with just their feet; when the disc drops, they are out. The twist is that there is immunity for the last man remaining and the last woman remaining. Almost immediately, Rizo and Kristina drop, and Jawan asks Steven, who is a rocket scientist, to distract them all with space facts. He starts rattling them off like Charlie Davis from Survivor 46 rattling off Taylor Swift songs. This show is not beating the allegations of being full of nerds. After 10 minutes of space facts, Sage finally drops, and Jeff says, “Sage can’t take it anymore.” He doesn’t mean the challenge; he means the extreme nerdery happening around him. And neither can Jeff because after that, he’s basically like, “Respectfully, shut up with the space facts.”

    They may have helped Steven win the men’s immunity, besting Jawan. It was another showdown between Savannah and Sophie, with Savannah taking the necklace for the second time in a row. Here they were all worried about Sophie being the comp beast, and it’s little Savannah and her Pilates body who keeps taking down these endurance challenges. This reconfigures the whole alchemy of who is going home that night. Steven and Kristina think they can just swap Soph out for Savannah as the target who goes home if Rizo plays his idol. That’s the plan that they’re selling everyone.

    Meanwhile, Rizo is going around blowing up Alex’s game and alerting everyone that he is playing the middle. The emphasis is on what is going on with Sage and Jawan, who are crucial to either side’s numbers, especially if Steven and Kristina’s plan to switch votes is going to work. Jawan says that he wants to get rid of Rizo and flush that idol, but that Alex is making that plan difficult because no one can read what he is going to do. It seems like Soph being the new backup target isn’t enough to sway Sage and Jawan, who really only liked splitting the votes if it ricocheted on mean girl Savannah. Sophie is another factor, because Steven and Kristina think she’s still with them, but she’s trying to get rid of her freshman friends for good and find some new people whose games more closely align with hers.

    Going into tribal, I have no clue who it will be. There are two options, and I know why and I know how it might happen, so this is the perfect kind of editing. We’re in suspense, but we’re not totally in the dark. When the votes are read, Rizo gets his way for the second week in a row, and Alex goes home. “This is what I get for playing both sides. You guys all talk?” Alex says on his way out, to lots of laughs. At least he can cop to what he did and why he went home.

    Personally, I don’t know why Rizo was so fixated on getting rid of him when he could have turned it on Kristina or Steven, who are actively gunning for him, which he knows because both Soph and Sophie alerted him to those plans. Alex might have been hard to pin down, but he’s not the opposition. Also, he could be a number in the future if he really was playing the middle. Now, Rizo still has just as much opposition, and everyone is locked into their voting blocs. But this leaves him in a great position. He has Savannah and Soph on lock with Steven and Kristina the only ones (besides Alex) left out of the vote. They now know that Sophie can’t be trusted and that Jawan and Sage might not be as keen to work with them as they anticipated. They’re on their own, and all the power seems to rest with someone who I don’t want to admit might just be the man, the myth, and the legend.

    Related

    Brian Moylan

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  • Landman Season-Premiere Recap: The Sharks Are Circling

    Photo: Emerson Miller/Paramount+

    Anyone who followed my recaps of the last few Yellowstone seasons knows that I have a mixed relationship with Taylor Sheridan, to put it lightly. That show had its charms, especially early on, but it grew dull, directionless, and indulgent by the end. Sheridan seemed more interested in devoting his time and energy to his several other series, including Landman, which aired its first season concurrently with that pitiful final stretch.

    So yes, here I am again, recapping a Taylor Sheridan show. The important distinction is that so far, I’m not bored to tears watching this one. It has its issues (and trust me, I’ll get into them), but the oil industry milieu is interesting, and there’s a general energy sorely missing from Yellowstone near the end. Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as petroleum landman Tommy Norris is the obvious standout; this show was written with him in mind, and he’s wildly entertaining to watch, even while delivering eyeroll-worthy rants that feel like they came directly from Sheridan’s mouth.

    “Death and a Sunset” wastes no time getting back to the goods with one of those signature rants. It’s less than a minute into the episode, and Tommy is already monologuing about how corporations like Kellogg’s spread propaganda about breakfast being the most important meal of the day. He also passes along a $100 bill to send a busboy on a cigarette run. What a legend.

    Not much time has passed between seasons. Following the death of Tommy’s boss and buddy Monty Miller (Jon Hamm), he is now president of M-Tex Oil, and he’s slowly getting used to that lifestyle with private-jet trips between Midland and Fort Worth. But pressure is high at work, where the banks are feeling skittish about funding an independent company with a power vacuum at the top. Tommy is still the one who actually gets all the shit done, but Monty’s wife, Cami, owns the company, and she doesn’t necessarily know the ins and outs of oil. That doesn’t inspire much confidence from people who have contracts with M-Tex. So she throws a luncheon to address her naysayers and prove herself as a force to be reckoned with.

    Demi Moore’s nothing role in season one felt inexplicable at times. But it seems like she’ll have a much bigger part to play this time around with Monty out of the picture, and I have to say, I’m pretty excited. This is what I hoped the show was setting up early on, back when she was just the “wife” character, contributing the occasional affectionate or mournful look.

    It also must be said that Landman sorely needs a well-written, strong female character, and Cami might actually fit. The premiere’s time with her is the most compelling stretch, starting with a restroom scene thematically and even visually straight out of The Substance, complete with a harrowing shot of Moore’s distressed, insecure reflection. And in case she needed years of misogyny and ageism reflected back to her verbally, Cami receives a cartoonishly mean remark from a young woman bragging about her upcoming Tulum vacation with a rich old man. “The divorced doctor convention is one hotel over,” she says. “It’s a young woman’s game here.”

    Of course, Cami’s resentment only fuels her to knock her high-stakes speech out of the park, and she does. She identifies herself as a hunter, details her shark-like plans to make money off all these people during the coming energy boom, and claims to be “meaner” than Monty, warning her listeners not to test or underestimate her. The crowd responds well, and Tommy offers some surprisingly warm praise afterward, telling Cami that Monty would be proud. It’s rare to see Tommy genuinely respect a woman on this show, and it feels nice.

    I wish I could say things have also improved with Angela and Ainsley, who struck me during season one as possibly two of the worst-written female characters I’d seen on TV since the aughts. Unfortunately, that is still the case, as evidenced by Angela immediately extolling the virtues of gray sweatpants (two words: dick print) to her 17-year-old daughter. They’re touring Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, where Ainsley’s priority walk-on cheerleader status basically guarantees her admission.

    The admissions counselor doesn’t exactly feel great about that, and I don’t blame her. Their meeting goes disastrously, with Ainsley sinking to previously unknown depths of idiocy. Look, I support a funny bimbo character if the writer has a solid grasp on who she is, but Ainsley is a confusing type of dumb. She studies hard, got a pretty decent 29 on her ACT, and is in the top 10 percent of her class, yet she doesn’t know the word “precipitate,” claims to be “studying abroad” in Midland, and thinks cheerleaders are being persecuted at Texas Tech because they can’t date athletes? It’s not even that funny to watch her flounder.

    If that’s Ainsley’s big, dumb scene of the premiere, Angela’s cacio e pepe dinner (with shaved white truffle on top) is her big, dumb scene. Planning her daughter’s future already has Angela in an emotional mood, and she’s set on buying a house in Fort Worth to be near TCU. It’s not that crazy of an idea, considering the level of wealth this family is accumulating, but to Tommy, it’s another example of Angela being rash and melodramatic due to her menstrual cycle. Gross. But of course, Angela plays right into it by giving him the tantrum he wants, throwing plates everywhere, and then gets over everything almost right away when Tommy compliments her breasts. He learns his lesson and understands now that he doesn’t need to comment on his partner’s periods all the time, but we’ll see how long that sticks. In the meantime, I’m very annoyed that the show vindicates Tommy by confirming that his wife was indeed hormonal and PMSing.

    What about Cooper? Well, everything’s coming up Cooper. The well he owns is starting to churn out oil at high ratios, which will quickly add up and soon totally change his and Ariana’s lives. She only seems moderately impressed by this news, though, and I wonder what we’re supposed to glean from her underplayed reaction. If someone told me we were about to make $10 million a year, I’d probably start screaming and crying.

    In the closing moments of “Death and a Sunset,” Tommy receives some devastating news: His mother has died. We really don’t know much about either of his parents, so we’ll have to wait until next week for some real context, but the episode does introduce his father, Thomas, a.k.a. T.L., seen receiving the bad news about Dorothy while watching the sunset outside his assisted living facility. It’s a striking scene, especially thanks to some better-than-usual writing (T.L.’s misplaced rage about the prospect of missing a sunset feels right) and the always reliable Sam Elliott, whose performance immediately grabs your attention. If there’s one reason to think season two of Landman could be a step up from season one, it’s him.

    Boomtown

    • If there’s another reason, it’s Andy Garcia, who’s also a regular this year following his appearance as cartel boss Gallino in the finale. No sign of him yet, though.

    • When Tommy advises Cami to defer to him, you get the sense that he’s not being condescending or greedy. He just knows that people will gun for her, and he wants to protect her (and the company) as much as he can.

    • Also not around this week: Rebecca Falcone (the young lawyer to whom Tommy once mansplained wind turbines), whom M-Tex presumably still employs.

    • Glad that the admissions counselor called out Ainsley for being offensive and elitist, because we were skirting close to eugenic thinking with all her gushing about hot cheerleaders belonging with hot football players.

    • I hope we get some real insight into Cooper and Ainsley’s beef this season. That would also provide a nice opportunity to see Ainsley do something new.

    • Nate calling out Angela’s use of “senorita” as cultural appropriation just feels like Sheridan’s idea of something the libs would get mad about.

    • T.L. gets the news about Dorothy from “Memory Care in Amarillo,” so I’d guess she was sick for some time.

    • “I recommend you find a way to die quick. This dying a little bit every day is…”

    Ben Rosenstock

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  • Matlock Recap: Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down

    Matlock

    Harm Reduction

    Season 2

    Episode 6

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS

    Let us now sing the praises of TV casting directors, who at their best know how to add just the right notes — sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant — to an already tight ensemble. Justina Machado has worked with Matlock creator Jennie Snyder Urman before, on Urman’s Jane the Virgin. But it still takes a certain amount of vision to imagine how an actor with as strong a screen presence as Machado’s can fit into a show like this — and possibly keep the main cast on their toes.

    In the case of Machado’s Eva Muñoz, a Jacobson-Moore partner and Senior’s vindictive ex-wife, her aggressiveness adds a jolt of energy to this show. Eva has the ability to throw Olympia and Matty off their games. She’s their ally, sure, in that she too wants to ruin Senior. But Olympia and Matty can’t trust that Eva has their best interests at heart… or even in mind, at all.

    We met Eva briefly in this season’s third episode, after Senior became aware of The New York Times Wellbrexa story and called an emergency partners’ meeting. By the end of that episode, Eva had let a wary Olympia know she was game for a coup. In this week’s “Harm Reduction,” she says she’s ready to follow through. Eva knows that two Jacobson-Moore offices (Miami and D.C.) will back her, and two (Chicago and Dallas) are “Senior country.” They’ll need to sway the New York partners to, as Eva puts it, “deep-fry the devil.”

    This isn’t a no-brainer play. Their window is narrow. The vote will be in six weeks, and will require 21 of the 40 partners to back Eva. And the potential repercussions are terrible. If the coup works, Olympia and Matty will have freer access to the Jacobson-Moore files. If it fails, they’re probably done with this mission, permanently.

    Matty and Olympia are facing a formidable opponent in Senior, who in this episode starts working behind their back, recruiting Sarah to spy on Julian. But it’s also unclear if Eva’s on their wavelength. Even though she’s never met Matty, Eva is suspiciously well-informed about Olympia’s star associate. (“Loved your hardscrabble story,” she says. “Super-relatable. To juries, not to me. I come from money.”) Eva unnerves these women. She doesn’t share their rapport.

    As cover for being in New York and consulting with Olympia, Eva has brought the team a case. A local convent in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood has come under fire from their newer, richer neighbors — and from their own diocese — because the nuns provide a safe space for junkies, with clean needles and Narcan. They testify that they’re following not just the biblical command for compassion, along with the most up-to-date medical advice about “harm reduction.”

    This is a dramatically strong Matlock case, and not just because it feeds into the main storyline in a few ways. The history of American TV legal dramas — The Defenders, Owen Marshall, L.A. Law, Law & Order, The Practice, The Good Wife, etc. — is the history of U.S. social policy being debated on the small screen, with an implicit acknowledgment that no answers are ever easy. The nuns are clearly the heroes here, for taking care of the needy and saving lives. But there are children in this neighborhood too, and attracting addicts to the church makes the block more chaotic.

    The court seems inclined to side with the neighborhood’s moneyed families and hip businesses, especially after the plaintiffs show a video of a woman ODing and screaming, right outside the church, in full public view. But then Matty has the bright idea to find this woman, Alyssa Lombardi (Whitney Bacon) so she can testify about how she grew up in this neighborhood, how the nuns saved her life, and how she’s been in rehab. “This is someone’s child too,” Matty explains to Olympia. “The judge needs to see that.”

    This whole case is a tough assignment for Matty, because nearly everything about it reminds her of her daughter Ellie — like so much does lately. She even imagines Ellie on the stand, during Alyssa’s testimony, explaining how she hit rock bottom but got a second chance. When the hearing begins, Matty is at a medium-to-high boil, because she actually doesn’t think a harm-reduction policy helps junkies get clean. But she keeps working for the clients anyway. Gradually, she begins to develop a more nuanced take on the subject.

    Olympia helps. Matty’s trying really hard in this episode to patch things up with her boss, to the point where she actually decides she needs to step away from the office for a little while, because her over-eagerness to please is a kind of unhealthy, addict-like behavior. For her part, Olympia realizes that her anger at Matty’s lies stems in part from how her rigidly moral father raised her, and that maybe she should also be more understanding.

    Like I said: None of this is easy. In this episode’s other main storyline, as Matty tries to win votes for Eva’s coup from the New York partners, her folksy charm and subtle subterfuge gets under Olympia’s skin, reminding her yet again of the year her supposed friend spent lying to her. Sometimes the greater good is messy as hell.

    In the end, the ladies have mixed success with the nuns’ case. The judge allows the convent to keep feeding the poor, but orders them to cut it out with the clean needles and Narcan. (In response, the nuns pledge to take their mission out into the streets.) But in looking for help wherever they can find it, Olympia calls on a Jacobson-Moore partner emeritus: Pat Cassidy (Phil Buckman), who left the law and became a priest. “After 30 years of working for the devil I thought I’d give God a try,” he says… with Senior in the room. Father Pat can’t persuade the diocese to back the nuns, but his return to the Jacobson-Moore offices gives Matty an idea. Pat is, technically, still a partner, which means he can vote on Eva’s coup, delivering “a good Old Testament smiting.”

    Eva may end up being trouble for our heroes eventually — and I kind of hope she is, because Machado can play those impish notes with an entertaining vigor. But Father Pat? What could possibly go wrong for Matty and Olympia now, with God on their side?

    • The structure of this episode is unusual for Matlock, in that at least two weeks pass during the running time. Usually this show’s cases are introduced and dispatched in a day or two, but here time jumps ahead twice, to account for the time it takes for Matty to whip votes and for Olympia to give Matty another chance. I like this, because it feels more realistic all around — and also because it moves the larger story much more quickly toward the big partner vote, now only a few weeks away.

    • The Billy subplot this week is… whatever. But the Sarah subplot? It’s the best she’s had this season. While shadowing Julian on Senior’s orders, she finds that she has a lot in common with him, and also that he has no plans to poach any Jacobson-Moore clients. She assumes that Senior will be happy to hear that his son’s a good guy, but instead he insists that she do what he originally asked and surreptitiously take pictures of Julian’s datebook. She does — and she feels awful about it.

    • We also get a very slight Alfie subplot, when Edward and Matty discover that he’s been faking some correspondence with his father, so that the grandparents won’t think that Joey is failing at rehab. This ends up plugging into the main storyline too, as Matty realizes from the nun trial that she shouldn’t put so much pressure on Joey and Alfie.

    • Matty, trying to make some awkwardly friendly conversation with Olympia at the start of the episode, asks if she’s “an every Sunday Christian.” I liked Olympia’s response: “I’m a ‘talk about work at work’ Christian.”

    Noel Murray

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  • The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Recap: It’s Making Me Uncomfy

    How many things does it take to make a trend again? Three? I’ve decided that for now, two is close enough, because I’m certain it’s happened more times and I just missed it. What I’m referring to is MomTok’s tendency to wear garments that are basically like “FUCK MEN” while also dating men and living their lives fully immersed in an oppressively patriarchal culture. Earlier this season, Layla wore an “I SUPPORT A MAN’S RIGHT TO SHUT THE FUCK UP” hat. And in this episode, Jessi sits in the car with her emotionally abusive husband while wearing a tank top covered with “BOYS LIE” patches and appliques. It feels like a “girls only, no boys allowed” sign on a bedroom door. Except these are grown women. So are these sartorial choices a safer way to express feelings without having to face the consequences of, I don’t know, telling a man to actually fuck off? Are they a baby step on the road to a more productive and life-enriching feminism? Or are these just brand deals and I’m reading too much into it?

    Boys do lie, though, especially when they’re named Dakota. Jessi pledges to tell Taylor about Dakota sexting Taylor’s “almost family member” if he doesn’t do it himself. And so far, he has not. He and Taylor chill in bed, looking at all their Stagecoach pictures. She’s so glad they’re all getting along and even tells him she’ll always love him. You can already see exactly how this will be edited for an intro supercut for The Bachelorette.

    I’m getting ahead of myself, though. It must be hard for the moms to keep all these timelines straight, especially with multiple seasons being filmed and aired in rapid succession. For instance, they just filmed the season-two reunion, where they could only talk about what happened months ago, but in “real time,” they’re living out a totally different mess in public and online, much of which could spoil season two — and this is all occurring toward the end of season three. It hurts my head!

    After having to film with Nick Viall, Whitney and Conner take their kids to the park to blow off some steam. They talk about how shocked they were to see the receipts on display, specifically Demi’s messages to Marciano and her recorded conversation with Jen, where she provides Jen a detailed script and acting coaching. To me, that recording will always say more about Demi’s character and motivations than any other receipt we have seen as of yet. It’s so transparently manipulative! In light of all this new information, Whitney feels she needs to talk to Demi to better understand the whole situation.

    But before that can happen, we must tease MomTok’s new “LGBTQ allies!” core brand tenet. Mayci is buying apples at the grocery store because Jacob says she eats too much Del Taco. In the middle of the produce aisle, they discuss Jacob’s gay cousin and how Mayci and Jacob aren’t like other Mormons. So MomTok will host a pride event to show they’re allies to the community, especially in light of Utah’s shitty House Bill 77.

    In what feels like a slightly more authentic conversation, Jen meets up with DWTS pro, Ezra. Like Jen, he is also Hispanic, from Utah, and grew up Mormon. Unlike Jen, he is gay, and when his parents found this out, they pulled him out of dance. He eventually left Utah and the church, and stopped talking to his parents. Then later, his whole family left the church and now his mom has a pride tattoo. After telling this whole story, Ezra says to Jen, “God doesn’t give you something you can’t handle … wanna film a TikTok?” Impeccable stuff. Any underperforming MomTok members should be ready for an elimination vote at the next board meeting because Ezra is here and ready to PERFORM. He’s fun and raw and living out most, if not all, of the MomTok brand tenets. Who cares if he’s not a mom? Many of the best Real Housewives aren’t wives. Semantics!

    Anyway, it’s time for Whitney to sit down with Demi to get to the bottom of what Demi really meant by “eggplant, water, clam” emojis, among other post-reunion pressing questions. Demi has answers for everything. Flirty texts? It’s how she talks to all her friends. Her pet name for Marciano? A “funny prank” her daughter made up. Marciano FaceTiming her daughter in the first place? An accident. Talking to Marciano if he’s her abuser? A trauma response and also a plan to prevent the sexual assault from “coming out.” Any other questions? Bret knows everything.

    Whitney returns to the hotel after hearing Demi out and immediately reports everything to Conner, as it’s not adding up for her. He points out that Bret wanting to order DoorDash food to his wife’s abuser is “odd” (a very diplomatic way to put it!), then goes on to say if Whitney came home and reported she was assaulted, he’d do everything in his power to keep this person away from both her and their kids. Whitney ultimately thinks Demi is not being 100 percent honest with her, and also likely not being honest with herself. Conner ultimately wants to err on the side of believing the person who said they were inappropriately touched but the story isn’t adding up. If you’d have told me during season one that these two would have the most measured and mature response to really anything, I’d have done a hearty chortle. But my favorite part of being a reality television fan is being proven incorrect! People are complicated.

    Back in Utah, the Swig sponsored beverages are flowing at the MomTok pride event. Taylor eats funeral potatoes while Jessi feels sick to her stomach knowing Dakota is there doing bumps of caviar and wooing his baby momma back. Everyone, including the podcast bozos who busted their way onto the guest list, is well behaved. Mayci pops over to Joseph (Jacob’s cousin) and is all like, “I [production] was JUST wondering: was it hard to come out to your family?” Mayci compares his coming out journey to her telling her parents she was pregnant out of wedlock while at BYU. Mikayla asks about any changes at BYU with the pride flag law as if BYU was flying pride flags in the first place. When Mayci and Jacob get home, they plant a pride flag in their yard because MomTok needs to use their platform for good and be more active allies for the LGBTQ community. Okay, so … y’all are going to be supporting progressive candidates and measures up and down the ballot from here on out, then, right? RIGHT?!

    Earlier in the episode, Jace and Mikayla went to a couples therapy session. It’s the same therapist who tried to refer Mikayla to a sex therapist, so I assume it’s an interim situation. They rehashed their struggles around vulnerability and disparate sex drives. Jace was concerned Mikayla wouldn’t have the motivation to work through this stuff, but the therapist reminded them that building a better relationship as an example for their kids could be a powerful motivator. This seems to work. While discussing their birth plan, Mikayla tells Jace for the first time that her abuse started even earlier than at 15 — that there were other instances when she was six, but she felt like she had to protect her abuser. Jace’s heart hurts so bad (same!) and he says his job is to create the first safe space for her. If Jace ends up taking an evil (or even just classic shitty man on this show) turn, so help me god.

    Speaking of classic shitty men on this show, Taylor learns about Dakota’s discretions. Her therapist told her she was going to get news of something really hard. Is this normal? I’ve never had a therapist who also acts as an oracle. The therapist tried to get Taylor and Dakota to come in so he could tell her in a controlled setting. This did not happen because Taylor was about to leave for Los Angeles, so Dakota told her immediately about his dalliances with [basically-a-family-member]. I totally get Demi’s daughter’s name being censored out, but a friend of Liann’s mother, who is presumably a grown woman? Surely the TikTok detectives will figure it out soon enough.

    Alas, it’s a mess and Taylor is mad she’s going to have to disassociate while filming Jimmy Kimmel. She had a glimmer of hope last week, and now she has nothing. But soon, she will have no less than five limousines full of suitors vying for her hand. And that’s to say nothing of the most important thing she has: SISTERHOOD.

    Olivia Crandall

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  • The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season-Premiere Recap: Two Kisses, That’s It

    That the premiere revolves around Cialis-induced semen found in some barely famous bro’s underpants is a sign that MomTok has never been weaker.
    Photo: Fred Hayes/Disney

    The time has come to convene an emergency meeting of the MomTok board of directors. Never in the storied history of MomTok have the core brand values been this desecrated. Female empowerment is at an all-time low.

    Brand-health alarms should have gone off when the first words of this season were spoken by Nick Viall and cranked even louder the first (or even the fourth) time Jordan used the word “emasculating.” Maybe if all MomTok members past and present united, they could have prevented the premiere’s main character from becoming the Cialis-induced, blackout-produced semen found in some barely famous bro’s underpants.

    But MomTok has been running on a skeleton crew stretched to their limits, attending influencer events and feeding the algorithm. So here we are. But I have faith the ladies will turn it around as long as they don’t appoint Taylor’s mom as interim CMO. Faith is very important to the MomTok brand. It is also important to me, because I believe in the power and resiliency of Emmy-nominated reality-television franchises the same way people from Wisconsin believe in the Green Bay Packers.

    After a glorious reveal of the updated intro theme — now with more horny fire! — we kick things off in Provo at Taylor’s house. Dakota swings by to pick up Ever because he’ll be watching him while Taylor attends a two-week therapy retreat. Hoping we get more details on this because I’m dying to know the amenities and practices on the menu. “Therapy retreat” could mean “repeatedly doing ayahuasca in the Peruvian Amazon,” or “checking into an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab,” or “sitting silently in a meditation center.” It could also mean “doing a lot of yoga and trauma-informed talk therapy with some nice scenery,” and this is most likely the case. Separately, what a joy to enter this season knowing Taylor and Dakota theoretically do not end up together. A brief respite for all involved!

    On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Minky Couture influencer event. Minky Couture makes blankets, and we do not need to get into how blankets can be “couture” because I have learned that living in Utah requires a willingness to suspend disbelief. Mikayla and Mayci walk us through the state of MomTok. It’s bad. Taylor and Jen are both on a mental-health break. Miranda is TBD. Demi left MomTok during that ultimatum last season. Whitney left MomTok (again) because she didn’t get the Oscars tickets and scripted-series role she wanted during contract negotiations. If you think this means we will be free of Whitney and Demi this season, sorry! Remember: MomTok is always a clique, usually a brand, and never an accurate cast list.

    Anyway, the remaining MomTok members, Layla and Jessi, have a rendezvous in the parking lot of the Minky Couture event. Layla is pressed to tell Jessi what she learned when the producers set up that little meet and greet with Marciano from Vanderpump Villa. Jessi comes clean immediately and lays out facts she will repeat on loop throughout this episode: (1) Jessi and Jordan have been struggling and separated in September; (2) Jessi was drinking in Los Angeles and kissed Marciano twice; (3) Jessi and Marciano had an emotional affair, texting for two weeks after; and (4) Jessi told Jordan everything right away, and they’ve worked through it.

    Jessi freaks upon learning that Marciano told Layla they also had sex, which she insists is false. So, naturally, Layla calls him on speaker. He reports live from the gym that he remembers — and I think the exact quote is important here — “I took a Cialis … I had cum stains in my shorts, but okay, whatever you say.” Correlation does not imply causation, my guy! Marciano’s details feel like the equivalent of saying “I took a Dramamine … I didn’t throw up” to imply that one survived a particularly turbulent Disney cruise. Whether he’s lying or not, Jessi calls Jordan right away, and he says that if she brings the cameras home, he’s done with the show.

    But those contracts are ironclad! The very next morning, the cameras are up and at ’em at the Ngatikaura household. Jessi and Jordan “discussed it more” and “agreed” to share this story (own the narrative). Jordan says he feels broken, asking himself if he can live with “lingering disrespect and emasculating feelings.” Jessi thinks it’ll be healing that Jordan can get comfort from his friends and family now that this is out, but she’s nervous to tell MomTok because it’s yet another scandal, and they’ve been trying to get away from all that. I, for one, think this is perfectly aligned with the true consumer perception of MomTok (scandal!), even if it does not match what appears in the MomTok brand guidelines.

    Jordan invites Dakota over for some guy time since he’s the only one Jordan knows who’s dealt with this level of relationship struggle in public. Jordan says it’ll be hard to explain it to his oldest daughter and that it’s “super emasculating.” Dakota hugs Jordan and advises him to pray to a higher power of his choosing and focus on his family since everything else is outside of his control. I’m tempted to make a joke about these two bozos solving the male-loneliness crisis, but I find it genuinely endearing that Dakota is whipping out his recovery toolbox to help out a friend going through it.

    Those feelings left my body immediately once Zac showed up on the screen. He and Jen are living in Arizona, focusing on their marriage and doing a lot of therapy. Fresh from a session, Jen explains how everyone knows about postpartum depression, but not prenatal depression, which was what she was experiencing last season. They’ll be driving back to Utah in a few weeks to have their new baby there. Jen is stressed because she has some tough conversations ahead, including making amends with Jessi for saying her husband has a small weiner. Oh, no, not more fuel for Jordan’s “emasculation” fire. I do not like where this could be heading.

    Back in Utah, Jessi has Mayci and Mikayla over to detail the Marciano sitch. She gives her whole spiel and adds further information about how Marciano blacked out and fell asleep on her bed while she was up all night panicking about the consequences of her (presumably intercourse-free) actions. Even though Jessi reminds them that horny guys get pre-cum in their undies on the regular, especially while on drugs, Mayci and Mikayla are skeptical after leaving. They think something feels off. What feels off to me is Mayci making a joke about how “these things happen” when you drink alcohol, and how Jessi shouldn’t have left the church.

    At Layla’s birthday dinner, the girls discover that a mole among their dwindling ranks has been sneaking information to Demi. Their tip-off was Bret doing drive-bys while Mayci and Mikayla were at Jessi’s, and Demi texting them right after to gossip. Jessi thinks Layla and Miranda are the two most likely suspects. Layla offers to show her phone logs as proof of her innocence. Miranda doesn’t even know what planet she’s on. Whatever Miranda’s reps negotiated contract-wise, good on them. She puts on cute little outfits, gets full glam done, smiles and nods, then collects her check.

    Once the girls’ dinner transforms into Layla’s full birthday party, things escalate into madness. Harbinger of mess Liann is there because “she had a business event in the area.” Okay, sweetie! Jordan continues yapping about being emasculated and being less of a man for staying with his wife. Chase from the Halloween party shows up to stir the pot. His mere appearance causes a full meltdown for multiple attendees. Not a single soul in attendance is happy to see this man besides Layla. He has a podcast that I will not name here because I refuse to give straight-dude chatcasts free publicity. All you need to know is that he regularly drags MomTok and its members.

    On one hand, if Layla wanted to bone this man’s brother, surely she could have set up a double date instead of inviting MomTok enemy No. 1 to this contractually obligated event. On the other hand (unless there was some wild producer manipulation), Mayci and Mikayla were given a heads-up at JZ Styles that he was on the guest list. We saw it earlier in the episode. On a third hand, a reminder that this birthday party is to celebrate Layla’s 24th birthday. Twenty-four!

    Jessi tries to resolve the situation between Layla and Mayci/Mikayla, which is what pushes Jordan over the edge. Her getting involved in the drama “makes him feel like he has no value.” He cries in the snow as Dakota pulls up in his Tacoma to ferry him to safety. It’s all a textbook case of how the real villain of this show remains the Mormon church. You take repression and traditional gender roles and an obsession with purity and perception, then smash all of that into the algorithm economy, throw a Cialis into the mix, and we end up in places like this one.

    And it appears we shall embark on many similar journeys this season. We’ve got more secrets! More toxic men! More discussion of the mole! Taylor promising to make someone’s life “a miserable fucking hell” yet again! But MomTok is sisterhood. So everything will be fine. And if it’s not, all the better for the content machine.


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    Olivia Crandall

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  • The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Recap: Fight and Flight

    Whether on a van, a boat, or a plane, there is no form of transportation that Meredith won’t rage at Britani on.
    Photo: Bravo

    Leave it to Britani to bring up Seth’s alleged infidelity and then act completely shocked when Meredith gets angry about it. Better yet, over yoga (where everybody but her gets a mat), Britani even describes bringing up the accusation as well-intentioned. Meanwhile, Meredith is still fuming in her room, where she’s telling Lisa that Britani “thinks she’s a Disney Princess,” but to be fair, she did play Ariel and Belle at Disney World. Seeking an even better comparison, she then asks Lisa to remind her who from The Wizard of Oz didn’t have a brain. “The Tin Man,” Lisa confidently replies, and Meredith deems Britani “The Tin Woman.” What a missed opportunity for Wicked: For Good cross-promotion!

    But luckily for Meredith, Bronwyn arrives at her door with an opportunity to get out some of this anger. She kidnapped Britani’s stuffed unicorn, and goads Meredith into throwing it overboard with her. But we should have known that more than anything, this was really just a ruse for Bronwyn to make use of those dumb inflatable costumes yet again — and she and Meredith don them so they can be “incognito” while tossing the unicorn off the ship. Gone forever is the only surefire way Britani could hear Jared say he loves her.

    With the unicorn slowly floating away, Meredith turns her ire toward Whitney at breakfast for seemingly cosigning the TikTok allegation. Meredith tells them all that she’s done with Britani, and she’s done with anyone who supports her. Heather correctly thinks this is absurd, because you can’t operate on a show with that attitude. Bronwyn even tries to bring the temperature down by asking Mary for help: “Mary, can you say something as a mother, as a woman of God here?” But some things are just out of God’s hands.

    As they disembark and apologize to the crew for their behavior and volume writ large, one of the crew members rushes out to return to Britani something she thought was forever gone: the unicorn … soaking wet. “Who threw this over?” she asks everybody, as if it’s some big mystery. Meredith eventually cops to it, while also throwing Bronwyn under the bus for good measure, and then hauntingly says, “Uni wanted to swim. You got tanner and makeup all over him. He needed a little dip in the ocean.” Chilling.

    What happens next is an all-too-familiar phenomenon that Housewives fans will immediately recognize from the sudden shift in editing. Something happened when cameras were down. It’s a producer’s nightmare, and yet they have to think on their feet to cover whatever incident happened off screen, usually filling in the gaps via confessional retellings and dramatic B-roll. All in all, it’s cobbled together like an episode of Dateline or Celebrity Ghost Stories. We’re told that Meredith’s rage continued at the airport, and then when they boarded, she and Lisa were seated directly behind Britani — and a scene erupted. The way these women tell it, you would have thought Meredith was about to bring the plane down. Apparently, she was calling Britani names, grabbing and shaking her seat, splashing her with wine, pulling her hair, demanding to see the TikTok, and reducing her to tears. For Meredith’s part, she says she was simply venting to Lisa, and adds, “Obviously nothing was that deep, because I would have been arrested by an air marshal.”

    While it’s a good point, none of the other women (apart from Lisa) are backing her story up. While very few people were on Britani’s side on the trip (or ever), this mid-air incident seems to have really turned the tide, and now they have no choice but to sympathize with her. When Britani meets up with Heather after the flight, she tells her that what hurt the most was Lisa egging her on the whole time, which she felt was the ultimate betrayal — especially since she had her back so strongly earlier in the season. “I keep saying that I’m the unsinkable rubber ducky, but I feel really broken right now,” Britani says, showcasing her ability to string together a truly insane turn of phrase in even the darkest of times.

    Since Bronwyn was on a different flight altogether, Whitney has to fill her in on what went down, and she brings up a good point. Bronwyn questions how this could have happened on a commercial flight without anybody talking cell phone footage of it? Firstly, you would have thought that at least one other passenger would have wanted to record this scene playing out, especially if they recognized the players. But what’s been annoying me even more is that these women should have been trained by producers to start recording on their own cell phones if drama starts to unfold after cameras go down. Then again, secretly recording Meredith last year was what first got Britani in this whole mess, so I’ll cut her some slack there.

    But then Bronwyn hits us with an even crazier curveball. “Apparently, Todd and Meredith need a reminder of fight etiquette,” she says to awkward silence. “I don’t know if you’ve seen on Twitter or not that people are accusing Todd of getting caught on a plane cheating on me.” She learned from this trip and is bringing it up herself, not only to get ahead of it, but because she believed it to be true. She says that this person claiming that Todd was getting sent lingerie photos knew too much accurate information about the flight and where Todd was sitting, so she confronted him about it and temporarily kicked him out. This leads to a fascinating conversation between her and Whitney about being open to the idea of being open, and that this wouldn’t be as much of an issue to her if it were something they had discussed or agreed upon. This conversation cements Bronwyn’s place as a phenomenal Real Housewife.

    We then see Heather arrive at a coffee shop, and a chyron appears that reads “11:10 a.m.” — we all know what that means. Someone is about to be late. Sure enough, we watch a montage of Heather sitting there for over an hour until Lisa finally arrives at 12:26 p.m. without apology. Most interestingly, though, is that Heather doesn’t make a single mention of her tardiness, which is either incredibly mature, a power move, or is focused on the more pressing matter at hand.

    Lisa is shocked when Heather tells her how upset Britani is with her, because, as you might have guessed, Lisa maintains that she did nothing wrong. All she did, according to her, was tell Britani to show Meredith the TikTok in question, and she denies that a big scene erupted. She explains away the jostled chair as Meredith using it as leverage to stand up, and says the the spilled wine really landed on her, not Britani. But all of these explanations do sound a lot more like confirmations. Nonetheless, Lisa says she was trying to diffuse Meredith, not egg her on, and is annoyed to once again be getting the blame for something she maintains she’s innocent of.

    Meanwhile, Mary gets the unenviable job of sitting down with Meredith, who continues to deny. “What is it that you think happened?” she asks Mary, who quickly responds with, “I don’t think anything happened; I was there.” Meredith maintains that she was simply venting to Lisa, for maybe 15 minutes. Mary says it was much longer than that, and then they start doing math. Meredith says she was asleep for over an hour on the flight and watched two movies, and there’s only so much time on the flight, so how much longer could this incident really have been? I, for one, would like to know what movies Meredith was watching. Fight Club? Snakes on a Plane? She thinks that this exaggerated story started getting spread to women who didn’t actually see it for themselves (because they were either on the other side of the plane or sleeping). In any case, if Meredith really did wait to pop off until they were airborne with no cameras rolling, it makes for the perfect crime.

    Tom Smyth

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  • Pluribus Recap: Peace on Earth

    Pluribus

    Pirate Lady

    Season 1

    Episode 2

    Editor’s Rating

    5 stars

    Carol gets an unlikely companion and struggles to connect with her fellow non-conforming humans.
    Photo: Apple TV

    Despite the Albuquerque setting and Rhea Seehorn’s presence in the lead role, there hasn’t been much obvious crossover between Vince Gilligan’s previous series, the crime drama Better Call Saul, and Pluribus, which perhaps links up more firmly with his past as a writer on The X-Files. But it’s worth noting a couple of places in the thrillingly expansive second episode, “Pirate Lady,” that draw the two shows together.

    First, there’s the classic WTF cold open, which may not be as cryptic as the pre-title sequences in Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad, but it introduces us to characters and a scenario that are wholly disconnected from what we’ve seen so far. (Think, say, the “Madrigal” episode of Breaking Bad, which opens with a desultory German CEO dipping chicken tenders into a variety of sauces.) In “Pirate Lady,” an unnamed woman in a burlap robe strides toward an overturned vehicle in a Middle Eastern city, wrenches a charred-up dead body from the driver’s seat, and drags it through an open window. With help from a nearby truck driver, she wraps up the body and drags it uphill to the bus, where we can see other bodies are being collected. From there, she drives a waiting moped to the airport, climbs into the cockpit of a cargo plane, and pilots it to Albuquerque, where minions await with coffee, a hot shower, and a change of identity.

    While we can certainly guess who she might be visiting in New Mexico, the open is an opportunity for the show to broaden its scope and suggest the true global scale of this alien operation. It’s one thing to look at the smoking, chaotic city of Albuquerque and imagine scenes like it happening elsewhere, but another thing entirely to see the disquieting sequence where this unnamed being is zipping around dead bodies and burning buildings halfway around the world. And other details count, too, like the importance the aliens have placed on cleaning up the mess they’ve made. They don’t want the earth to be an apocalypse of rotting corpses and smoking wreckage, but something closer to the utopia these seemingly gentle visitors want to promote. Plus, a hierarchy has been introduced around this one character who many others are serving — and who will later emerge as an ambassador of their values.

    The second connection is that for as much as Kim Wexler would have in common with Carol Struka, Carol at this moment seems even closer to Everett Acker, the cranky old coot who refused to leave his home in Better Call Saul. On that show, Kim represents a bank that’s seeking to evict the final resident from a piece of property where it intends to build a call center. But Acker won’t leave, and he greets anyone who asks with nasty invective, including Kim, who initially tries to bully him out before deciding that she’s in his corner. Carol is Acker: Unpleasant but righteous and willing to stand on principle. She assumes she’ll get dragged away at some point, but until that happens, no amount of enticement will get her to leave her spot.

    “Pluribus” crackles with terrific comic tension as Carol wakes up next to her dead partner, filled with grief yet spoiling for a fight. Her stubborn side comes out in her quixotic effort to dig a grave for Helen in their backyard — we certainly know from past Gillian shows that holes in New Mexico are not easily dug — but she’s devoted, too, and tender in picking out the right quilt in which to lay Helen to rest. The timing isn’t great for an unnamed visitor to stop in with a bottle of water and some advice on how better to penetrate the volcanic rock in her yard. Carol is not impressed to learn that “Jarmell Gurky,” the line supervisor at the Aquafina bottling plant, says the water is okay to drink. She cracks it open and pours it into the ground — very Everett Acker-esque.

    Yet Carol does need help, loathe though she might be to get it. And she does actually care deeply about her fellow man, despite the unkind things she’s said in the past about “HoustonMom” and the other dimwits who like her books. After her fury results in the unnamed visitor falling into a spell and shaking — which, she learns, causes every other being to do likewise — news that it results in fatalities worldwide literally sickens her. She is an inadvertent mass murderer, just like the aliens who have taken over her planet. Among the important things she learns in this episode is that she’ll have to control her temper or people will die, which bothers her immensely, even as the beings rush to reassure her. (Maybe because they’ve killed infinitely more people, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)

    Though it pointedly takes Carol longer than anyone to ask the name of the important visitor from the opening sequence, we eventually learn it’s Zosia (Karolina Wydra), who looks familiar to her because of her resemblance to Raban, the hunky space pirate of her fantasy series. That Raban was originally written as a woman freaks Carol out, because only she and Helen knew about that, which means that the alien has absorbed all her dead partner’s memories and is now using them to ingratiate herself with Carol. That’s an awful thing to do. But Carol is naturally curious to understand why she’s among 12 people who were not susceptible to “joining” the invaders. Where are the others? Can they meet?

    The get-together of English-speaking humans at an airport in Bilbao takes the episode to another level of comedy and philosophy. First, there’s the surreality of Carol huddling up with the first four non-conforming humans — Otgonbayer (Amaraa Sanjid), Xiu Mei (Sharon Gee), Kusimayu (Darinka Arones), and Laxmi (Menik Gooneratne) — as their “joined” family members stand around pleasantly in the background. (“We’re very pleased to meet you, Carol,” they say in unison.) Then there’s the arrival of the fifth, Koumba Diabaté (Samba Schutte), in Air Force One, which the aliens have fetched at his request, along with the phalanx of sexy stewardesses who tend to him. Koumba has picked up on the aliens’ eagerness to please the non-conformists quicker than the rest, and he’s exploiting his power like an amiable Nero.

    Once all of them gather for a meeting, the argument against Carol’s skepticism becomes obvious: Why is any of this bad? Joining the aliens seems like a path to eternal contentedness, and, in the meantime, they can have anything they desire, from a tour of the Guggenheim to food service on par with Judgment City in the film Defending Your Life. Carol isn’t having it. She doesn’t like that nearly everyone on earth has been turned into an anesthetized pod person and doesn’t understand why the others can’t see how sinister it is. “It does not matter how nice they are to us or how many supermodels they send to peel our grapes and jerk us off,” she says. “It does not change the fact that this is not right.”

    Carol may be correct, but she’s incapable of being diplomatic about it. When Laxmi pushes back against her, Carol is so annoyed by Laxmi treating her adorable son, Ravi, like a real child that she quizzes the boy on the gynecological expertise he now possesses. Ultimately, only the easy-going Koumba continues to speak with her, but it’s Carol’s deepening relationship with Zosia that seems most crucial to the show going forward. The peace-loving utopia that Zosia and the aliens, who we learn are called Celtiberians, are promoting has some ethical holes that Carol is smart enough to expose. Chiefly, if the Celtiberians are so committed to peace that they won’t kill a living thing deliberately, then how can they justify the 886,477,591 humans who have died so far in their mission on Earth? (“I guess you gotta break a few eggs, huh?”, snipes Carol, channeling George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove.)

    The final moments of the episode are more poignant, however, and suggest an important shift in the Carol-Celtiberian divide. Koumba has decided that he likes Zosia and wants her to be his companion, an arrangement that Carol is told requires her blessing. Carol is repulsed by how regressive this sounds and nearly loses her temper for an alien-shaking third time in the episode. “That’s your idea of paradise?,” she asks Zosia. “Being used like some sex doll?” But in the final moments, when Carol is back in her coach seat on the plane, something nags at her. She’s lonely, but she can see as plainly as we can that Zosia is affected by what she’s said. Maybe this is how the revolution starts. Or maybe, like another ending that unfolds on an airport tarmac, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

    • Maybe the connection was unintentional, but the sight of humanoid aliens loading humans into trucks and zipping away on two-wheelers calls to mind Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. (Though the Celtiberians are much, much, much gentler to mankind than ScarJo and her kind in that film.)

    • A seeming amateur stepping into a cockpit and piloting a decommissioned plane across the sea? Who does Zosia think she is, Nathan Fielder?

    • Jarmell Gurky is an A+ funny movie name.

    • The power to recall any information or communicate mentally to anyone is, admittedly, extremely cool. Witness that slight pause when Zosia inquires about the five English-speakers being willing to meet with Carol before she says, “All five say yes.”

    • “Who’s flying this thing? That gal from TGI Friday’s?”

    • Amusing to hear everyone discussing the finer points of the movie Air Force One on the plane: “Actually, if you’ll recall, Harrison Ford never rode in the escape pod, which I thought was a clever gambit. He stayed behind in the cargo hold.”

    • Carol’s various descriptions of Ravi to his mother are devastatingly funny: “The one who can perform open-heart surgery and fly the space shuttle,” who is also “your prime minister, some guy you dated in high school, your gynecologist.”

    • From the Department of Things Are Not So Bad, Koumba makes the counterargument to Carol: “As we speak, no one is being robbed or murdered. No one is in prison. The color of one’s skin, by all accounts, now meaningless. All zoos are empty. All dogs are off their chains. Peace on Earth.” Then there’s the counter-counterargument from Xiu Mei, who’s annoyed that a freed Beijing giraffe is eating the leaves off her tree.

    • Kudos to Carol for resisting the temptation of the pepper bacon she ate in 1998 and the crispy brioche the aliens have flown in for her. I’d personally sell out humanity for the food thing alone. I’m weak.

    • An important philosophical exchange to monitor in the future: Zosia telling Carol that her people can’t choose and Carol responding, “Yes, you can. If you can do square roots in your head, you can make choices.” We all make choices. Some of those choices are inevitably hurtful or even destructive. Celtiberians are not immune.

    Scott Tobias

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  • Death by Lightning Series-Premiere Recap: A Man Can Be Anyone

    Photo: Larry Horricks/Netflix

    “This is a true story about two men the world forgot. One was the 20th president of the United States. The other shot him.”

    That’s the bitter epigraph that opens this invigorating first episode of Death by Lightning, and one important aspect of the book on which this miniseries is based, Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, is that the 20th president didn’t deserve to be forgotten. The Garfield of the book is, so far anyway, the Garfield of the show, carrying a humility and nobility that’s frankly disconcerting coming from Michael Shannon, who’s usually cast as more wayward types. (I did a double take when learning Matthew Macfadyen, not Shannon, had been tapped to play Charles Guiteau, though that decision is justified the moment Macfadyen opens his mouth.) In Millard’s telling, Garfield truly was a potential successor to Lincoln, a great orator and sturdy Midwesterner who abhorred slavery and spoke to the country’s highest ideals.

    Except that Garfield died 200 days into his presidency. Eighty of those days were spent in agonizing pain from a gunshot wound. Destiny of the Republic tells many different stories about America, but one is about how easily the nation’s progress can be undone by the actions of a single deranged, fame-seeking asshole.

    The deranged, fame-seeking asshole here is Charles Guiteau, and it’s a small masterstroke for Death by Lightning to open in 1969, in a warehouse at the Army Medical Museum, with his preserved brain rolling around in a box. If this were Igor in Young Frankenstein, Guiteau’s jar would be the one marked “Abby Normal.” There’s a sense right away in this series that Garfield, a happily married congressman with a generous homestead in rural Ohio, would have been happy to be forgotten. By contrast, the words that greet this discovery at the museum, “Who the fuck is Charles Guiteau?!,” would have infuriated Guiteau, a man who envisioned the “destiny of the Republic” as one he’d have a hand in shaping.

    But to reach his historical moment, Guiteau would have to climb out of a deep hole, and Death by Lightning takes that literally by opening with him serving out his latest prison sentence in a Manhattan detention facility called “the Tombs.” The chief judge in the five-man panel considering his case looks through Guiteau’s account of a “mix-up” with his landlord, pointing to a letter from Guiteau’s own father saying the two have been long “estranged” and assessing his shaky moral character, which includes a stretch among the hedonists of the Oneida Free Love Colony. Displaying a rhetorical gift that reflects Garfield’s like a carnival mirror, Guiteau likens himself to a great tradition of “rogues and migrants and freethinkers.” “Here and only here,” he says of America, “a man can be anyone.”

    Though Guiteau and Garfield share a handshake at the end of “The Man From Ohio,” the episode elegantly sets them on the path to their crash course in Chicago, where they are pursuing important individual ambitions. Having been scooped up from prison by his sister Franny (Paula Malcomson), the sole family member with any affection for him, Guiteau announces a grand plan to raise seed funds for a newspaper called The Daily Theocrat. When he attempts to get those funds from a proper bank, he’s apparently counting on the loan manager to forget the man who threw a paperweight at his head a few years earlier. Meanwhile, Franny’s husband, George (Ben Miles), a well-to-do patent lawyer, doesn’t share his wife’s faith in her brother. When Guiteau inadvertently attacks her with an axe in a fit of unhinged rage, Franny quietly suggests that he check himself into an institution to work on his mental health. He’s merciful enough to his sister to agree, but he knows that all faith in him has been lost. He steals all the money from George’s safe and burns the last remaining bridge to anyone who cares about him.

    Yet the real highlight of this episode is all the goings-on at the 1880 Republican National Convention, which is far from the multi-night commercial for party solidarity that they’ve become in the modern age. The presumptive favorite for the nomination is Ulysses S. Grant, the war hero who’d already served two terms in office and was seeking an unprecedented third. But in a presidency plagued by corruption and graft, the real power rests in his New York City cronies who, as Garfield’s wife, Lucretia (Betty Gilpin), colorfully phrases it, “parade [Grant] around their banquets like some puffed-up old totem.” Chief among Grant’s backers is Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham), a New York senator who benefits from the federal money funneled through the port and various other political favors.

    Though Grant’s ultimate failure to secure the nomination underscores his weakness within the party, his challengers at the convention, James G. Blaine (Bradley Whitford) and John Sherman (Alistair Petrie), are weaker still. Blaine is not quite as feckless, but Sherman has an ace in the hole in Garfield, who agrees to endorse him in a speech. Garfield’s speech, with its eloquent and fiery plea to the values of the Republicans under Lincoln, proves to be a little too good for Sherman’s purposes, leading some delegates to wonder if this dynamic representative from Ohio might be interested in the job. When a delegate from Pennsylvania gives him a single vote on one of the many, many ballots needed to get a majority, Garfield is furious and tries to take steps to prevent his name from coming up again, but he’s denied. He doesn’t want to be president, but he’s told he has no choice in the matter.

    Garfield offers an apology to Sherman, who’s deeply humiliated by this turn of events, but Sherman isn’t having it, and he offers perhaps the most important line of the episode: “Nobody makes a speech like that unless he craves it for himself.” The line feels true, and Shannon’s face suggests that Garfield is perhaps learning something about his ambition that he didn’t know. Lucretia seems to have known it before he does, too, because she says, “Whatever you do out there, don’t forget this” as she sends him away. While he does seem genuinely content with his family in Ohio, Garfield still came from abject poverty to get there, and his courage in battle for the Union cause speaks to a larger sense of duty. He may also have the slightly less noble quality of narcissism, which is the common denominator of every world leader who has ever lived.

    The reluctant nominee also has two snarling adversaries in Conkling and Chester A. Arthur (Nick Offerman) and one big new fan by the name of Charles Guiteau. It won’t be long until all three are gunning for him.

    • Referring to the Oneida community as a “free-love colony” makes it sound like a proto-hippie commune, but that could not be farther from the truth. This religious perfectionist group practiced group marriage, a sinister eugenicslike practice called “stirpiculture,” and “male sexual continence,” which is an orgasm-control principle. The founder, John Noyes, fled to Canada in the summer of 1879 to dodge statutory-rape charges.

    • That Hanni El Khatib cover of “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead (You Rascal You)” really hits hard after that cold open. The robust energy of this show, in general, is hugely encouraging. History can be fun!

    • The director of the episode (and the series) is Matt Ross, who HBO watchers will remember well as Alby Grant, the closeted son and heir to the Juniper Creek compound on Big Love, and Gavin Belson, the CEO of tech giant Hooli on Silicon Valley. More relevant to this show, Ross also directed the fine 2016 film Captain Fantastic, starring Viggo Mortensen as a domineering father who isolates his six children from society.

    • Guiteau’s dodgy argument to the bank manager about the dent left in the wall by the paperweight: “Well, that was clearly a throw performed by a right-handed man, and I am a lefty.” Macfadyen channels much of the dim enthusiasm of his Tom Wambsgans character on Succession, and it gives this show the same comic lift.

    • Already hard at work installing potential members of Grant’s next Cabinet, Conkling floats the secretary of the interior gig to Garfield in the bathroom. “I’m hardly qualified for that job,” says Garfield. To which Conkling retorts, “You own a fucking farm, don’t you?”

    • It may be a bit much, but crosscutting Garfield’s stirring convention speech with Guiteau furiously chopping up wood is what we in the business call foreshadowing.

    • There’s not even five minutes of screen time between Guiteau hearing of the new Republican nominee (“Who the hell is Garfield?”) to him wearing a Garfield campaign pin.

    Scott Tobias

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  • The Lowdown Season-Finale Recap: Chapter One

    The Lowdown

    The Sensitive Kind

    Season 1

    Episode 8

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    After putting the final pieces together, Lee finally submits the story he promised Elijah weeks ago, but his personal life remains less resolved.
    Photo: Shane Brown/FX

    Late in “The Sensitive Kind,” Lee and Marty are laughing at the Sweet Emily’s counter, the assault course of the past few weeks safely behind them. Sally pauses her work as Marty holds court, sharing war stories from his decades as a private eye. Lee insists that Marty write a novel on the subject, but Marty’s been mulling a different medium: “Individual stories — each chapter about a new investigation.”

    There was much left for The Lowdown’s season finale to resolve, but it’s no exaggeration to say that an unexplained title card from the series premiere has been slowly eroding my brain, consuming me more than the mystery of Dale Washberg’s killer ever did. If you’ll remember, it read, “Chapter 1: The Sensitive Kind.” At the time, I carelessly assumed each episode would have its own title, maybe lifted from a different J.J. Cale song. When the second episode carried no such title, I fought to make sense of the discrepancy — maybe every two episodes equals one chapter? And when the third episode bore no such title, I grumpily surrendered to my belief in Sterlin Harjo. He’ll let me know what it means when I’m ready to know.

    I’m not always down for a last-minute reinterpretation of events. For every Primal Fear, there’s a North. But this one is fun. We thought The Lowdown was an exciting neo-noir fueled by one bedraggled man’s delusions of grandeur. And it is! But perhaps it’s something else, too. Solving Dale’s murder is the apotheosis of Lee’s truthstorian career, but it’s another closed case for a man who’s made a life of exposing secrets. Lee drove the action in Chapter 1, but what if it was Marty’s retelling all along? The finale suggests that he’s the tissue that will connect season one to The Lowdown’s Chapter 2, provided the series is justly renewed. This makes perfect sense to me. My appetite for more Lee is low, but Harjo’s Tulsa — cynical and lively at the same time — simmers with more to say.

    It’s fitting that, as the end credits roll, we zoom out to the city block that connects Sweet Emily’s to Lee’s Hoot Owl Books with Dan Kane’s dodgy law practice and the vinyl store in between. This is our Sesame Street. “Anything for the Deadly Natives,” Dan calls to Hoot Owl security guard Waylon, who needs legal advice after a brief lockup. This is where real stories happen, and the big city that looms to the south is only a backdrop. (Incidentally, on the pitch reel for Sesame Street, Kermit explains that show’s funny name: “You know, like ‘Open Sesame’? It kind of gives the idea of a street where neat stuff happens.” He could just as soon be talking about this tiny patch of Tulsa.)

    Now, I do understand that other viewers may have been more concerned with Lee’s predicament — we last left him attempting a citizen’s arrest in a church full of Nazis — than the episode-title conundrum. Harjo comes through for you guys, too. Frank laughably claims to the congregation that he was standing his ground when he killed Arthur with a concealed weapon that he brought into the man’s home, which he entered under false pretenses. But these people don’t care one way or the other. When Pastor Mark says “Shoot,” they say “How high?” Fortunately, Marty, posing as a federal agent here to arrest Lee for harassment, bursts through the One Well doors in the nick of time.

    The preposterous scheme gives the skinheads just enough pause that Marty and Lee make it back to the van before it starts raining bullets. They head to Hoot Owl, where Waylon could theoretically stand guard, except he’s AWOL. Before long, a brick sails through the window, but it’s not the skinheads. It’s Chutto, enraged at having lost his only family. “You don’t think about anyone but yourself,” Chutto tells Lee. It’s what lots of people have been telling Lee all season long, including Wendell and Ray and Cyrus and Elijah and Marty. At first, Lee really seems to hear it. On the moonlit street, he tells the grieving man that he’s sorry. He repeats the claim in a whisper even after Chutto leaves.

    By sunup, though, he reverts to the same old Lee, complaining that he was only trying to help Arthur in the first place. He can’t let go of his own idea of what’s right: getting Indian Head Hills back from the Washbergs for Chutto, a man who Lee cannot believe does not want to own a few hundred acres of undeveloped land that sits adjacent to the compound of a racist, violent religious cult.

    Marty works his connections to learn that Frank won’t be charged for Arthur’s murder — the official verdict is that accidents happen when confused old men own guns. If I were the Tulsa DA, I’d be wondering why Frank was at Whispering Pines in the first place. Then again, if I was the Tulsa district attorney, I would be more afraid of gabillionaires like Trip Keating than of bereaved family members like Chutto. Incensed, Lee delivers Dale’s notes to Pearl, hoping to smoke out the only other person who can finger Frank for the murder: Betty Jo.

    I’m not entirely sure why this gambit works. Once Pearl knows that Dale was suspicious of Betty Jo, the damage to their relationship is done. Perhaps Betty Jo simply wants to confront the man who took away the last person she had left. They meet on neutral territory — the grand Philbrook Museum of Art — and make asinine accusations. “You turned my daughter against me,” Betty Jo spits at a man who was only the messenger. “If you do something good and it ends badly every time, is that really good?” she asks Lee, who responds nonsensically, “I could ask you the same thing.” Except he couldn’t ask her that because Betty Jo’s never tried to do something good? She’s always been looking out for herself. Eventually, Betty Jo explains to Lee that all she did to help Frank was unlock the kitchen door so his goons could scare Dale in his study that night. Everything that followed was an accident.

    Armed with Betty Jo’s partial confession, Lee revisits his murder wall, ready to write the article he promised Elijah weeks ago. He pulls an all-nighter at Sweet Emily’s, drinking bottomless filter coffee, hunting and pecking across his stickered MacBook. Sally stops by Lee’s stool to remind him that Tulsa needs men like him. Personally, I wasn’t convinced by her pep talk, but Rachel Crowl’s voice is so alluringly throaty that I’d listen to her read the Yellow Pages. I guess the point is that for every person like me and Chutto and Betty Jo, who thinks Lee is a dangerous egomaniac, there are people like Marty and Francis and Sally, who believe he’s holding a mirror up to the man. There’s room for everyone to be right.

    With his story drafted, Lee finally confronts Donald, laying out everything that we already know. Yes, Donald was right that Dale was obsessed with a Native street artist. That’s why his mistress threw in with Frank to intimidate Dale into a land deal that would have ruined any chance of Chutto’s family ever getting their land back. Frank tasked the intimidation out to Allen, who tasked it out to Blackie and Berta, who screwed it all up. The first time they came to scare Dale, Dale ended up shooting at them. The second time, with Betty Jo’s help, they made it into Dale’s office, where they killed him. Scared, Betty Jo staged the suicide. And just in case Donald doesn’t believe she would do such a thing, Lee plays him a recording. (Oklahoma is a one-party consent state.) Lee was right not to buy Dale’s suicide, but Marty was right, too: Donald had no idea what was going on. To his credit, Donald holds himself to a higher standard: “I didn’t want to know,” he comes clean to Lee.

    Interestingly, when given half a chance, Lee refrains from telling Donald about the time Dale came into Hoot Owl, which we learn about in a flashback at the top of the episode. It was about a year prior, back when Lee had time for tasks as quotidian as manning the till. Dale tells Lee that he’s read his “brave” articles, and the two get to talking. When Lee calls himself a “truthstorian,” Dale doesn’t roll his eyes dismissively. He asks Lee what the word means to him. “You know how they say there’s more to every story?” Lee says. “Well, that’s what I try to find.”

    The men are very different, but they’re also kindred. Dale responds with a Jim Thompson quote that may as well be the first bread crumb in this whole investigation. “There’s only one plot: Things are not as they seem.” What eventually gets printed in the Heartland Press is less of a Washberg hit piece than a tribute. Lee writes that Dale believed in freedom, personal expression, and that the choices we make in life matter. It is, in large measure, Lee’s tribute to what Lee likes about Lee. The word “sensitive” was hurled at Dale as an insult, but Lee redefines it in a way that flatters them both — “quick to perceive things.” The article runs with Chutto’s sketch of Dale as a standalone image dominating the front page and a familiar headline: “The Sensitive Kind.”

    In exchange for Lee burying the Indian Head Hills land-deal story — which, on paper, looked like a candidate taking a bribe from Trip and the Nazis — Donald agrees to give up the land. At a press conference alongside tribal leaders, he announces that the family of Arthur Williams has deeded the plot back to the Osage Nation. In their middle-of-the-night, middle-of-the street confrontation, Lee told Chutto that his grandfather wanted to claim the land. No, Chutto insisted, a little cryptically: “He knew who it belonged to.” Donald loses the money, but he still wins the governor’s race.

    When poor Bonnie learns what really happened to Blackie, she shoots Frank in broad daylight. Pastor Mark gets arrested, thereby avoiding an eventual Waco. There’s no punishment for Betty Jo, but also no hope. The next time we see Pearl, she’s standing by her uncle-father’s side. The next time we see Pearl’s mother, she’s singing tearful karaoke. It’s not tidy, but the end of The Lowdown resembles something like justice.

    Lee’s personal life is less successfully resolved than his murder investigation, which is unsatisfying even if it is also, to some extent, the point. When Francis performs at an open-mic poetry event, Lee swings by just in time for his daughter’s go. Her poem is about her broken home, literal and figurative. Her dad planted a redbud tree, in bad soil, outside her bedroom window. “After he left, it grew.” The poem is littered with gut punches that would destroy me as a parent; Lee sees the poem’s beauty and appears to feel appropriate shame. But when a better father would stick around to order a round of hot drinks for everyone, Lee bolts for the door. After hearing that poem, how does he not worry what takes root every time he leaves?

    One of Lee’s principal virtues as a dad is that, even if he doesn’t stay too long, he eventually shows up. In episode two, he doesn’t bail on his weekend. Last week, Lee made it to Francis’s parent-teacher conference, however briefly. And at the end of the finale episode, he even shows up at Dr. and Mrs. Johnny’s wedding, which means we’re back at the Philbrook. (Cherokee Nation singer Kalyn Fay plays the reception.) Along with a controversial present — the Joe Brainard sketch he stole in episode one — Lee brings self-serving disdain for the event’s expensive bouquets and caviar, emblems of the life he couldn’t give Samantha even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t.

    As he makes an understandably early exit, Lee and his daughter share something of a full-circle moment. Early in the season, Francis suggests it might be easier for Lee if she lives full time with her mom and Johnny. Here, Lee suggests it would be easier for Francis to do the very thing she offered episodes ago. It’s Francis’s turn to affirm her dad that he’s still her dad, even if her mom has married someone new. “It’s offensive to pretend I’m not smart enough to see that you’re good,” she pleads — a generous sentiment from a girl who shouldn’t have to think this much about her dad’s feelings. Just let your daughter enjoy this emotional, complicated day as best she can.

    When Lee’s pedo van craps out for good in the parking lot of the stately museum, I couldn’t help feeling it was karma catching up to him. But it’s honestly not much of a problem for Lee. He’s not in a rush. No one’s really counting on him, which makes it that much more stunning when he makes good. He ambles back to his Sesame Street, which probably doesn’t take that long because Tulsa’s not that big a place. Lee’s a big personality on a short block.

    It’s so short, in fact, that Lee’s liable to turn up again in various ways across the other chapters of Marty’s story, which I hope we get to see.

    Amanda Whiting

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  • I Love LA Series-Premiere Recap: Sympathy Is a Knife

    I Love LA

    Block Her

    Season 1

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    It’s Maia’s birthday, and she’ll make up with her influencer bestie, Tallulah, if she wants to.
    Photo: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO

    When I first moved to Los Angeles, everyone told me to give it “at least two years.” They said that’s how long it would take to find out whether I could live there. But to like it, let alone love it? Who knows! Everything was beautiful and nothing felt real. As a spinning Rachel Sennott put it in a bizarrely compelling 2020 video that’s essentially a succinct thesis statement for the dissertation that is her 2025 HBO show: “Come on! It’s L.A.! Haha! What?! It’s L.A.!” Basically: the girls who get it, get it. The girls who don’t, don’t.

    I did, until I didn’t. Still, leaving proved a much more painful breakup than I’d ever expected because I really did learn to love so much about L.A. The food! The arts! The biodiversity! The vibrancy! L.A. can rule! But seeing some of its most insular instincts through Sennott’s eyes (and those of pilot director Lorene Scafaria) feels more familiar than I’d expected, too. As much as I Love LA will inevitably get compared to Lena Dunham’s Girls, I’m gonna throw it out there that its truest HBO ancestor is Entourage, with all the desperate social climbing and grimy Hollywood truths that implies.

    This first episode opens with Maia (Sennott) waking up on her 27th birthday. She climbs on top of her sweetiepie boyfriend Dylan (fittingly played by professional onscreen sweetiepie Josh Hutcherson), and does her best to have a great time amid an ongoing earthquake, because “if we’re gonna die, I just wanna come.”

    Once this noble mission is accomplished, she begins the traditional birthday tradition of whining about getting older. Dylan does his best to combat her blues, quickly realizing that the lovely sentiment of “every year you become more and more yourself” isn’t half as convincing to his girlfriend as, “and you’re skinnier now, which I know you love.” Yes, yes, she does. One crashout thus avoided, she opens Instagram and skids straight into another one. Her former best friend, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), just posted a pic from a campaign they worked on together in New York, before Tallulah apparently dumped Maia for a bigger-name manager.

    Stewing in fresh rage, she sets off to meet her friends Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker) for a brisk coffee walk around Silver Lake Reservoir, a classic meetup mode for anyone in L.A. vaguely committed to “healthy living” but not enough to hike. Maia absorbs the glow of compliments on her new haircut before going in on Tallulah, because she’s at the point of a friendship breakup where she needs everyone around her to agree that the friend in question sucks. Ever since Tallulah went from It Girl to #influencer, Maia’s resentment has calcified into a bitter pill she refuses to swallow. She was the one who turned Tallulah’s wildness into something marketable, she says. “I’m not gonna sit around and do nothing while she reaps the benefit of my hard work!” And so, with Charlie’s enthusiastic encouragement, Maia blocks Tallulah and feels, she insists, amazing.

    Unfortunately, that brief high of righteousness quickly wears off when she clocks in for her thankless job as a publicity assistant. It disappears for good when her #girlboss Alyssa (Leighton Meester, who’s always welcome on my screen even while playing someone who gives me hives) rejects her case for a promotion. Scafaria’s close-ups on Sennott’s face throughout this pilot, such as in this scene with Alyssa hemming and hawing in the background, are so good. When Maia grits her teeth and brings up her experience managing Tallulah — now known to thousands as It Girl Tallulah Steele — it’s clear how much it pains her to pull that card.

    Imagine Maia’s shock, then, when she gets home after work only to be tackled by the tornado that is a half-naked Tallulah herself, squealing “happy birthday!!!!1” as if nothing ever happened. Apparently, Alani flew her out to L.A. as a birthday surprise. (Gotta love daddy’s Oscar-winning money!) Sennott’s always had such compelling charisma, so it says something that A’zion immediately makes Tallulah so over-the-top magnetic — with, it must be said, incredible hair —  that it’s easy to understand Maia’s insecurities by comparison. Having a friend who’s hot and fun in such a natural way that she can just make things happen is a blessing when it benefits you, and a curse when you inevitably get left behind.

    But Sennott’s script is smart not to make Maia such a killjoy straightman opposite Tallulah. All I need to understand how these two were friends is their exchange as they wait in the line for the club Maia swore she didn’t want to go to:

    Talullah: “You remember when I got roofied at Mr. Purple?”

    Maia: “Yeah, that night was insane. They used to roofie people here, but then they fixed it.”

    Tallulah: “Ugh, bummer.”

    Maia: “Yeah, I know.”

    These two, to quote a dearly departed HBO show, really did used to be The Disgusting Brothers.

    We don’t see what happens after Tallulah somehow meets the club owner in the 30 seconds it takes Maia to humiliate herself while trying to cut the line. But it’s enough to leave Maia too hungover the next day to eat the supposedly great bagels Charlie waited so long in line for, or to join Tallulah when she insists they have to blow off her other plans and go to the beach. (What?? It’s L.A.!) Fed up and exhausted, Maia leaves Tallulah and Alani to go off on an idyllic montage — set to Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” obv — of getting stoned, hitting up Erewhon and vintage shops, and looking hot in bathing suits. Maia, meanwhile, spends all day frantically trying to get her fancy birthday dinner reservation to accept a fifth person at the last minute.

    But by the time she and Dylan get to dinner, the reservation doesn’t even matter anymore, because Tallulah’s pulled another Tallulah. The extremely unimpressed hostess leads them away from the restaurant and up to an adjoining hotel suite, which Tallulah somehow managed to land for a mini surprise party. Even Charlie’s now “totally obsessed” with her, to Maia’s obvious annoyance. Worse still is the fact that Talullah also invited Alyssa, because Maia had told her that they were “basically best friends” instead of admitting that she didn’t get the promotion. The biggest indignity of all, though? Tallulah got the suite in exchange by telling the hotel that she was celebrating her birthday. When the cake comes floating towards Maia and the words “Happy Birthday, Talullah!” come into focus, it is, understandably, Maia’s 13th reason of the day.

    Maia leaves her own party to be alone; Tallulah, refusing to read the room, goes after her. Though Dylan tries to follow, Charlie and Alani know better than to let him. It’s time for the girls to finally be honest in that most sacred of friendship spaces: the bathroom.

    Sick of pretending she’s fine, Maia tells Tallulah the truth: “Having you here just reminds me of how good you’re doing without me, and I’m a fucking flop.” Luckily for her ego, though, they’re both flops! Tallulah reveals that she’s not only broke, but that she caught the rich guy she was dating DM’ing women for “titty pics.” At this, Maia’s instantly back on her side. “Ew! I’m sorry, just Google ‘boobs.’” Look, it may not be a cute instinct, but sometimes, all you need to get over a grudge with someone you truly love is to realize you’re on the same level (and that some men are gross and unoriginal, obviously).

    With that, Maia and Tallulah are back. With only a Balenciaga bag and an incredible face card to her name, Tallulah decides that she may as well stay in L.A. — with Maia as her manager for real. As Peaches’ “Boys Wanna Be Her” kicks off, they yowl, “we’re gonna fucking KILL IT” in each other’s faces and scamper back into the suite, where a male stripper’s already getting the party started on Alyssa’s lap. After getting her own spin with him, Maia grabs Tallulah’s phone and directs her into the limelight instead. As long as they’re a team again, she doesn’t mind being the brains behind the star — until, inevitably, she does.

    • As a Gemini moon (iykyk), I’m comfortable saying that of course Tallulah is a Gemini. Good luck with that Saturn Return, babes!

    • Dylan being a guy whose day almost gets ruined by his bookmark falling out is a tiny detail, but a perfect one.

    • “I can’t get another UTI. The doctor said if I get another one, I can’t Zoom in for meds anymore.”

    • “You don’t see me hanging out with Avicii anymore, do you?” “Yeah, because he died.”

    Caroline Framke

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  • The Great British Baking Show Recap: The Bee’s Knees

    Paul Hollywood better lock his doors, turn on the alarm, and get in the panic room because I am coming for him. I’m not going to hurt him or anything, but I am going to scratch one of his cars and eat all the sweet treats stashed in his house, and you know that, like Toby, his stash is considerable. How dare he treat my perfect Tom like that? First, at the beginning of the episode, he looks at Tom’s fingernails and says, “You’ve been hanging on by there for a while.” Seriously? Paul gave him a showstopper handshake, and now he’s like, “Eh, you kinda suck.” Please. Then the judging of the showstopper. Oh, you better clear the decks because I am about to go full Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale on his ass.

    The signature is the only challenge during Patisserie Week that I don’t absolutely hate. The four remaining contestants, also known as Jasmine and the Gents, all have to make two batches of cream horns, which spawns about 15 “horny” puns. Only 15? The show is slipping. There is nothing wrong with this assignment, except that things are a little warm in the tent during what was England’s hottest summer on record. Pretty hard when patisserie requires the butter to be cold, which we are told more times than there are horny puns.

    Toby tells us that he has never made rough puff pastry before, and the last time he made full puff, Paul yelled at him. So he tried Paul’s recipe, and it sucked, so he’s using Gordon Ramsey’s instead. This is the kind of shade that I never knew Toby was capable of, but it makes me love him even more. When Prue tries Toby’s pastry, she says it’s too hard, which Paul, of course, blames on Toby using a chef’s recipe. I’m sorry, but there will be no vindication for Paul this episode. While they love both his coffee-flavored and lemon horns, they both don’t love the actual pastry, which puts Toby at the bottom.

    Down there with him is the artist formerly known as Perfect Tom. Don’t worry, Tom. I still think you’re perfect. The whole time he is baking, he keeps saying his horns are going to be more like short-crust pastry, and when the judges try them, that’s the exact critique they have. If Tom knew this was a problem, why didn’t he find a solution before the (im)perfect judges came along? However, much like Toby, they love his raspberry cream cheese and chocolate and clementine flavor combinations, but it’s the pastry that they seem to be grading.

    The opposite is true of Aaron, who the bakers seem to think is the king of pastry, but I’m not sure why. Is there something that happened this season that I’m forgetting? Paul and Prue both love his dessert cornucopia, but they hate the flavor combinations. Paul says that his nectarine and cherry both taste great individually, but together they’re gross. He’s not wrong. It does sound a little like making a Slush Puppy at 7-11 and putting a pump of each flavor into the ice. The same goes for chocolate and lemon, which I don’t love either, unless it’s a See’s Candy Lemon Truffle. Mmmmmm.

    Queen Jasmine, of course, gets nothing but praise. I’m sorry, but it’s no fun when there is a clear front-runner. We don’t watch to see who goes home; we watch to see who is going to win, and it’s so obviously been Jasmine for weeks now that there is no suspense at all. The judges love her pastry Bugles, which do look delicious. Paul loves their flake, Prue loves the balance of coffee and chocolate in one variety, and Paul loves the raspberry, pistachio, and white chocolate (barf) ones. However, he chides Jasmine for using too many pistachios for the rest of the episode, even though she never uses them again. Ugh. Paul. Always on my shit list.

    The technical challenge is to make a Framboisier, a French dessert with layers of génoise sponge, crème mousseline, and fresh raspberries. (Anyone who has ordered gelato in Paris knows the French word for raspberry is “framboise.”) Bakers also have to make a fondant rose and a sugar dome to decorate the top. As an audience, we want these challenges to be difficult, but we ultimately want the bakers to succeed. We want to see something tricky but doable in the time so that they triumph. Here, no one finishes the cake they wanted in the allotted time, which means there is no problem with the bakers; there is a problem with the challenge. This is just too damn hard. Do they not test these before? Don’t they have something like on Survivor where they have non-contestants run the challenge first? Apparently not.

    There is one good thing about the challenge, which allows Aaron to say that this is what he loves about baking: making a cake that looks like a cake, not one that looks like a football, Paul Hollywood’s head, or one of his many cars. Exactly! That’s what we want too. We don’t want them to be engineers, as this show so often turns them into; we just want them to make a great-looking cake. At one point in the showstopper, Jasmine says, “I’m not an engineer, I’m a medic.” Exactly! And she’s perfect the way she is. No wait. Tom is perfect. She’s adequate the way she is. (Just kidding. She’s great, too.)

    I can’t think of a more disastrous bake in the history of this show than this technical. Making the glass dome is the part that befuddles most of them. What they need to do is boil sugar, pour it onto cling film (British to American translation: Saran Wrap), press down on the film so it bulges into a dome, wait for it to cool, then take it off the film. This seems like one of those things you watch a pastry chef do on TikTok and then say, “Coooooolllll!! I’m never doing that.” Tom almost completes his and then cracks it while putting it in the freezer. Aaron is the only one who manages to do it successfully, and his dome looks like a pint glass that has been sitting in a gutter for three days. When it comes down to judging, it’s between Jasmine and Tom for the top spot, and the judges like both of their cakes, but it ultimately goes to Jasmine. What if Tom had finished his dome? Would that have nudged him to the winner’s circle? Is it about the cake and its taste, or is it about this foolhardy technique that even Martha Stewart was like, “Why would you bother?”

    The clear loser is Toby, who serves up something that looks like a protein shake and a green juice tried to have sex and both of their bottles fell over and they just spilled all over the floor. His problem is not only with the dome but also with the mousseline. It’s a custard that is combined with butter, but the custard has to be cool and the butter has to be soft or else it won’t set and, as Toby learns, spill all over the floor like a leprechaun’s milkshake. What he serves the judges looks less like a cake and more like a puddle, and Prue also says there should be two layers of sponge, but there’s only one. That’s like showing up at a burned-down house and asking why there isn’t WiFi. We have bigger problems here!

    The showstopper is a macaron-based challenge where the bakers have to make a centerpiece at least 45 centimeters (about a foot and a half) that is “bold, impactful” and showcases 30 macaroons. I have no problem with this challenge; this is the kind of thing that the modern Baking Show has been doing for years. It’s difficult but seems attainable.

    Most of the bakers (bar Jasmine) struggle with their macaroons, especially Aaron and Tom, who both have to make theirs again. At least Tom was perfect enough to know that the first batch might not turn out perfect, so he made enough for two batches so he could throw the second one right in the oven. Perfect. What makes the baking even harder is Alison and Noel harassing our poor bakers as they work. Noel comes around with his friend Mr. Spoon, who, much like the Magic Rhubarb from two episodes back, can get the bakers to the finals if they give it a big wet kiss. Damn it. If only I could have dressed up as Mr. Spoon, because I’d love kisses from all the remaining bakers and also Alison, if she ever gets herself unstuck from straddling that fence. (Literal, not metaphorical, because our Alison is wonderfully opinionated.)

    While I don’t have a problem with the challenge, I do have a problem with the judging, particularly when Tom gets up there. He created a giant chocolate beehive (with Iain inside, according to Noel) hanging from an actual tree and covered it with yellow macarons painted to look like bees. When he brings it up, with much assistance, Prue says that it looks “astonishing.” Paul, however. Not so much. He says, “If it were chocolate week, I would accept it, but I can’t accept that when it’s a macaron challenge. The macarons look fairly flat. The painting is rudimentary, but the main thing I’m looking at is that [pointing to the hive]. It’s very Tom. I understand that. You should have made that smaller and covered all of it.”

    Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This goes against not only the challenge brief but everything that has been going on at Baking Show for the past decade. They said they wanted “bold and impactful,” and they specified a height. It’s always rewarding more ornate, huger, crazier. Now suddenly this is too big, too ornate, too crazy? They asked for big, and then Perfect Tom gave them big, and they were like, “Never mind.”

    How many times have we talked about how the bakers have to pay more attention to the structure of what they’re building, so that they don’t have time to make things taste good? How many times have they limited the types of biscuits or cakes they can make because they need to construct something that stands? I’m sorry, but that comes at the expense of the thing they’re actually baking. If you really wanted to taste delicious macarons with great painting, the challenge would have been to just make some macarons and put them on a plate. But it’s not. The challenge is to put a bunch of macarons on a sculpture, and the judges are mad because the sculpture is bigger than the macarons? Fuck right off.

    Meanwhile, look at Jasmine’s. It’s dinky! It looks great, yes, but hanging a bunch of macarons from a Christmas tree is not inventive or creative. Jasmine’s bakes never are. She does the bare minimum, and they never tell her to step it up or tell her that she needs to be more inventive. She’s just skating by, and no one is challenging her. Yes, I know it comes down to flavor, and she nails it every time. But when you’re doing less than everyone, there is more time to focus on the baking and the flavors and everything else. The other bakers are showing some ambition, whether that’s making something huge, something with three different flavors, or even a giant macaron sign that says “Lemons,” because that is what the show has been rewarding for ages. Now, suddenly, they are rewarding flavors but not creativity? They’re rewarding meeting the brief and nothing else. Again, fuck right off.

    But it’s Jasmine’s fifth Star Baker and third in a row, tying her for the most Star Bakers in one season. (Note, Richard Burr, the co-record holder, came in third in the finale, so it’s not all hers yet.) Paul and Prue gush over her tree, even though it looks like something you could construct out of a kit. Aaron’s is a bit messier because he had to remake his macaroons, but it has a certain charm. Okay, maybe that’s too generous. Aaron’s is both a mess, and the judges say the cookies are too chewy, and Paul doesn’t think they’re up to the standard. Tom, we already talked about how his looks, but both judges say that the macarons are underbaked.

    Toby’s lemon crates look wonderful, but again, they’re like, “That’s a lot of gingerbread.” Dude! That’s what you asked for! While it looks cool, they don’t like the lemon macarons, saying they’re a little underflavored. The chocolate ones on the crates, however, they absolutely love, which seems to put Toby in good standing, like he could have saved himself, especially after the negativity heaped on Tom and Aaron. But it’s him who goes, with Paul saying that his disastrous technical was the decider. Here I am saying the technical doesn’t matter, but apparently, it doesn’t matter until it does. The end of the episode is especially weepy for Toby, like they all can’t believe they’re sending someone home. I thought for a minute Paul was going to put a Ru in front of his name because you know Drag Race loves to pull the “You’re all going to the final!” trick. But it didn’t come. Instead, we just get a lovely Polaroid of the group, Toby clutching everyone in his arms as all the bakers wonder just when and how the whole game changed.

    Brian Moylan

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  • The Witcher Recap: Practical Magic

    The Witcher

    Twilight of the Wolf

    Season 4

    Episode 6

    Editor’s Rating

    5 stars

    The long-awaited clash between Vilgefortz and Yennefer doesn’t disappoint.
    Photo: Netflix

    Let’s talk about how magic works in The Witcher. As Yennefer and her fellow students learned at Aretuza all the way back in season one, magic is rooted in chaos: a natural, powerful force that — when properly harnessed — can be drawn upon to do great and terrible things. Even for experienced sorceresses and wizards, chaos comes with a cost. The magical energy used to create a portal or launch a fireball needs to come from somewhere, and it’s usually the life of something else — everything from a flower or tree to a person.

    Now: Consider the Cchaos required for Vilgefortz and his minions to attack Montecalvo, and consider the chaos required by Yennefer and her army to repel them.

    Much of “Twilight of the Wolf” — an episode named not for the absent Geralt, but for his mentor, Vesemir — plays out like an elaborate strategy game, as Vilgefortz and Yennefer decide how and when to burn off their impressive reserves of magic and magic users. Vilgefortz, true to form, begins by leading a squadron that blasts magic so aggressively at the fortress that some of them crumble into bones on the spot. Yennefer, saving the energy of her heaviest hitters as long as possible, asks the novices-in-training to maintain a magical shield as long as possible — only ordering when their noses and eyes begin to bleed under the strain.

    And that’s just the first wave of a multi-pronged battle. What separates The Witcher’s large-scale conflicts from similarly scoped set pieces like Lord of the Rings’s Battle of Helm’s Deep or Game of Thrones’s Battle of the Bastards is the plethora of weird strategies available to these mages. At one point, Triss Merigold transforms an enemy into a frog, which Vesemir promptly stomps on. At another, one of Vilgefortz’s more innovative mages uses telekinesis to grab an array of mounted swords from a wall and fling them, one by one, at their foes down the hallway.

    There are heavy casualties on both sides. (We don’t really know anybody in Vilgefortz’s camp, but you can say good-bye to ancillary sorceresses Margarita and Nikita.) Still, this has always been a very personal conflict between Yennefer and Vilgefortz, which is why Vilgefortz finally stops letting his minions do all the fighting and jumps through the portal himself.

    What he finds, on the other side, is his dead lover, Tissaia de Vries — hair still white but otherwise apparently unharmed and ready to fight to the death. This is, of course, a trap that Vilgefortz sees through very quickly: Yennefer has merely glamoured herself to look like Tissaia. But just when Vilgefortz thinks he’s gained the upper hand, Yennefer springs her actual trap: When his second-in-command enters the room, Vilgefortz spills the rest of his plan — only to discover that Philippa Eilhart has pulled her own trick by glamouring herself as his right-hand man.

    With the upper hand, Yennefer takes the opportunity to dig into Vilgefortz’s mind and see what she can find. What she sees terrifies her: A future in which the mage has captured Ciri and is subjecting her to brutally painful experiments in an apparent effort to gain access to her power.

    As the battle rages on at Montecalvo, a smaller battle, though no less consequential, is unfolding at Vilgefortz’s secret lair. Fringilla escapes her captors, weaker but no less determined, and rescues Istredd from his cell. Together, they reach the chamber where Vilgefortz is draining and sacrificing lower-level mages to maintain exclusive control of the portals. Having studied for so long, Istredd instantly grasps the answer: By sacrificing himself in the same way, he can shut down Vilgefortz’s control of the portals for good, giving Yennefer and her allies a much-needed tool back in their arsenal. There’s some hand-wringing by both Fringilla and Yennefer about whether the sacrifice is worth it, but with apologies to Istredd: Yes, losing one mage — even one we’ve been hanging out with since season one — is worth it if it means turning the tide of a war that could plausibly lead to the end of the world.

    Back at Montecalvo, another fan-favorite character is making another sacrifice. After confronting Vilgefortz in one-on-one combat, just as he promised to do two episodes ago, Vesemir manages to stab Vilgefortz in the chest but pays with his own life. “For my son, Geralt,” Vesemir says with his dying words, a reminder that Geralt isn’t the only witcher who took a young orphan into his care.

    After all that magical violence, the fight ultimately comes down to one last push. A late effort by Vilgefortz and his army to defeat Yennefer via fire magic is quelled when Philippa opens a water wheel. With Istredd’s sacrifice on the other side of the portal complete, Yennefer’s army teleports behind Vilgefortz, and with the advantage lost, the mage retreats to fight another day. It’s a victory, but a painful one; though Yennefer’s side struck a serious blow, they also suffered some heavy losses.

    But regaining access to portals gives Yennefer a vital tool back in the search for Ciri, and to her credit, she doesn’t waste any time. After asking Fringilla where Emyhr would keep his most treasured possession, she teleports right into the heart of Nilfgaard and snarls the question that’s been at the heart of her mission all season: “Where the fuck is my daughter?”

    • After all the cleverness and excitement of the magical battle at Montecalvo, it’s a little deflating when the episode suddenly cuts away to check in on the Rats. Having kidnapped a rich kid (and killed some guards in the process), Ciri celebrates by snorting her first line of fisstech. The other Rats are delighted, but Mistle finally confronts Ciri, rattled by the growing darkness she sees. “Accept me as I am, because all of this darkness … this is me,” Ciri replies, like any rebellious teenager might.

    • Leo Bonhart watch: The bounty hunter kills some random dudes who are dumb enough to cross him and steals a Falka doll from some little girls who have adopted the Rats as folk heroes. It certainly seems like he’s narrowing in on his quarry.

    • This is a nitpick, but what exactly are Vilgefortz’s minions hoping to gain by being on his side? He probably promised them a share of his ultimate power or whatever, but he’s not exactly a guy who seems to value loyalty, and there’s ample evidence that he’ll drain the life force of anybody if it means maintaining power.

    • Vesemir’s death in the Netflix series deviates from the broader Witcher canon, where he remains a major character as late as the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

    Scott Meslow

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  • The Chair Company Recap: Jeep Tours

    The Chair Company

    @BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.

    Season 1

    Episode 3

    Editor’s Rating

    3 stars

    Photo: Sarah Shatz/HBO

    “@BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy” strikes me as the closest thing we might ever get to an average episode of The Chair Company. That’s not a knock at all, star rating aside; the show is just settling into a more consistent groove, and for me, that means this episode lacks a little of the surprise of the previous weeks.

    That says a lot, though, in an episode where a bug crawls into Ron’s phone through its charging port, addressed in one line of dialogue by a weirded-out sales rep and then never mentioned again. There’s a creeping menace underneath everything here, and it makes watching the show a discomfiting experience even when the actual threat of violence isn’t there. In fact, much of this episode plays out as a series of misunderstandings and clarifications, and that might be the dominant mode for this show: introducing something unsettling but then undercutting it one scene (or one episode, or five episodes) later.

    Take the opening, which resolves last week’s cliffhanger with the reveal that the man taking photos of Ron in his closet is actually working for Mike Santini. He was supposedly sent here just to keep an eye on Ron and was supposed to send the photo to Mike, but he mixed up the burner numbers. That doesn’t take away from the cliffhanger or the confrontation itself — the episode starts off with an intense chase following LT’s burst from the closet — but it does provide another blueprint for this show’s regular horror subversions.

    Of course, it’s not like Ron can forget about what just happened. Each of these scares leaves a lasting imprint on his psyche, and you get the sense that they’re starting to accumulate. At the rate this man is going, he might be a shut-in by the finale. The scene with LT is just the latest nightmare fuel-up, judging by his aggressive broom-stabbing to check the closets in the middle of the night. LT might’ve been a “red herring,” but the scenario leads Ron to imagine the worst, including an intruder who would force him to kill his own family. Those people exist, he points out to Barb, so an expensive security system only makes sense.

    As for the actual conspiracy investigation, Ron and Mike make some headway in this episode, traveling several layers deeper down the Tecca rabbit hole. Mike apparently managed to confirm that his employer, Jim X, got paid $50,000 to have Mike scare Ron. (Seems like Mike should be pissed he got a measly fraction of that to do the actual scaring.) So Ron goes to the county clerk’s office (using Douglas’s name) and sees the name RBMG, Inc. on the deed for the abandoned building he visited. Apparently the last man to check out the deed was a mean man named Steven Droyco — intel Ron manages to capture with some not-bad spy work.

    A quick Google clarifies that RBMG is short for Red Ball Market Global, a shady company with a photo of that giant red ball from the abandoned office on its website. There are photos and names for board members, including a woman named Ronda whom Mike calls gorgeous, but they go nowhere. And when Ron calls the RBMG phone number, the (amazingly catchy) hold music plays on a loop nonstop. “That’s the problem with the world today,” Ron vents to Mike over beers. “People make garbage, and you can’t talk to anybody.” Theme of the show?

    Aside from a drunk, angry message for National Business Solutions mentioning the RBMG board, the rest of Ron’s progress this week relates to Droyco, whom Mike tracks down. The guy seems unstable, freaking out and taking off as soon as they ask about Tecca. But Ron isn’t leaving empty-handed, so he and Mike break in and grab some random papers. In a spooky touch, they also run into an old woman who supposedly died a couple years ago: Droyco’s mother, who is apparently pretending to be dead because she owes her sister money.

    Droyco explains this to Ron during an unannounced visit to Fisher Robay. He’s willing to admit that he worked at Tecca for four days, taking parts off chairs and putting other parts on while in the nude. He recognizes a photo of Ken Tucker, the CFO of Red Ball Global, but doesn’t have any more information to offer. Ron will return his papers to him when he’s ready to chat more. Soon after, though, Ron is getting a security alert with a horror-movie shot of a hooded figure in a hockey mask sitting in a Tecca chair outside the Trosper house, shaking his head manically. “Jason!” Ron exclaims in the final moments, just in case the scene was in danger of falling too far on one side of the horror/comedy divide. I expect the horror to further deflate once we get the context.

    Aside from near-misses like the intruder at game night, Ron is still managing to not let his Tecca obsession totally infiltrate his work and family life, though there are signs of discord on both fronts. For one, the choice to keep football out of the Canton mall development gets some pushback and publicity, including from a former Cleveland Browns player who cries on the news about it. Ron wants to stick to his vision, but his boss Jeff and colleague Alon undercut him by coming up with their own nod to football. It’s small, but Ron’s ego is fragile — especially thanks to the pressure to live up to his father’s legacy, a character trait straight out of Detroiters. As Ron explains it to Mike, his dad was a great man with “a bridge named after him.”

    Ron’s homelife in this episode feels particularly Breaking Bad-esque: His wife is suspicious about his whereabouts, and his son is acting out. When he sees Seth drinking outside on the security camera, he arranges a meet-up at a café, where Seth explains, “I found out that if you actually don’t drink too much, drinking is actually really fun.” When he’s drunk, he says, he tells jokes because they’re funny, not just to get a laugh. (He also sometimes drinks beers and watches Abbott and Costello, which really has nothing to do with self-consciousness.) Ron doesn’t even fight Seth’s logic, maybe because he experiences that same desire to just be his core self instead of an idealized, hard-working family-man projection of himself.

    But Ron breaks one secret to keep another by using the Seth issue to get out of explaining his own recent extracurricular activities to Barb — in the process totally violating his agreement with Seth, a sign that Ron’s efforts to hide are pushing him to be a worse husband and worse father. His recent absences have Barb wondering if he’s escaping the tedium of Fisher Robay by doing “Jeep tours” again, having seen the box that LT and Mike were kicking around in the garage. In this absurd take on a Breaking Bad-esque antihero drama, Ron’s dark past has nothing to do with drugs or gambling or contract killing. He used to be obsessed with Jeep tours.

    Whenever I spend too long writing about the actual character drama of The Chair Company, or untangling the increasingly convoluted plot, it starts to feel a little silly. This is a series with a distinct vision and tone, yes, but it’s also just a chance for Tim Robinson and Co. to fuck around, and that’s still true in “@BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.” Look at the clerk who gets sent home to take a shower, because apparently people can smell her. Or Douglas’s supremely creepy “mistakes party,” where people wear either yellow or green wristbands depending on their comfort level with mistake-making. In an episode dense with theories and red herrings, those glorious diversions are what linger most.

    • “You put a little guy in my closet?”

    • Good background line from a sales rep: “Oh, fuck yeah. We’re just popping in for a fuck-around, but it’s always such a pleasure to see you, Ron Trosper.”

    • Ron reassures Barb about their expenses by saying they’ll have “a billion bucks” soon. Sure, Ron.

    • Mike’s anecdote about his ex-wife poisoning him with a hundred “sexual stamina pills” raises a lot of questions, but at least we know that the pills made him smell like a duck.

    • I would think Ron would be concerned about Mike making direct contact with his son, but maybe he knows Seth is too much of an airhead to even question the guy.

    • “I didn’t even want the green. He made me take the green and said, ‘What are you going to do? What mistake do you think you’ll do?’”

    Ben Rosenstock

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