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  • Paradise Season-Premiere Recap: Elvis Has Left the Bunker

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    Paradise

    Graceland

    Season 2

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    Season two kicks off with a beautiful detour into the life of Annie Clay (Shailene Woodley), an apocalypse survivor living in the ruins of Graceland.
    Photo: Ser Baffo/Disney

    Fire up your favorite emo cover of an ‘80s rock anthem because Paradise is back, baby. Let’s begin with a quick refresher as to where we left off with your favorite bunker show: A super volcano underneath the Antarctic ice shelf erupted and caused both worldwide tsunamis — Australia was gone first, I’m sorry to say — and a massive ash cloud that blocked out the sun. On top of Mother Nature’s chaos, as the world began to collapse, several governments got trigger-happy with their missiles, and it looked like everyone was about to go nuclear, because sure, why not? It’s the end of the world as we know it … until President Cal Bradford steps in.

    In a game-changing twist, we learn that at the last minute, Cal uses a super-secret failsafe that fries every electric circuit on earth and thus kills all the nuclear warheads before they can detonate, while also leaving any non-bunker survivors without any electricity. Because oh yes! There are survivors outside the not-so-secret Colorado bunker! And, as our evil billionaire Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond reveals to Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins, his wife, whom he had believed died after watching a nuke on track to blow up Atlanta, is one of the survivors, and she’s been using a radio to try and get in touch with him. Once Xavier and fellow agent (and Cal’s secret girlfriend) Robinson have solved the mystery of the president’s murder — it was the fake librarian with a vendetta after the love of his life got sick and died while they were helping construct the bunker! — Xavier gets on a plane, escapes the bunker, and goes to get his girl.

    Even just skimming the surface, there’s a whole lot to remember. But guess what? You actually don’t need to remember most of it because the season-two premiere has almost nothing to do with our main players from the bunker (until it totally does). In fact, we spend the entire hour with new characters and we trade in the Colorado bunker for a much cooler place to hunker down while the world ends: Graceland. I know what your first question must be: Does this mean that instead of ‘80s rock, we get emo covers of Elvis Presley songs? You betcha. So many emo Elvis covers.

    Instead of picking up where Paradise left off, “Graceland” takes us back in time and introduces us to Annie Clay (played by Shailene Woodley) and proceeds to show us what happened to her before, during, and after the apocalypse. I’m sure some people might be frustrated that we aren’t hopping directly back into the main action of the series, but if I’m being honest, it took me maybe five minutes to be completely invested in Annie’s story. This is partially because I’ve lived through Dan Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown’s other joint venture, This Is Us, so I’ve become accustomed to detours with random characters who eventually tie into the main story. But mostly, “Graceland” works because of Woodley’s magnetic performance.

    When we first meet Annie, she’s a poor teenager taking care of her ailing mother, at one time a successful doctor who was eventually felled by her mental health issues. The one thing that seems to help her mother is Elvis Presley. His portrait is on the mantle. Annie goes on the tour at Graceland over and over and over again to tell her mother about it. After her mother dies, Annie’s on her own. We see her in med school. She’s smarter than her colleagues. She’d be an excellent doctor. Unfortunately, she has debilitating panic attacks. The day she drops out of med school, she finds herself crying in her car outside the gates of Graceland. We’ve all been there. When security guard Gayle comes upon her and hears her story, she takes pity on her and eventually Annie becomes a tour guide at Graceland. Elvis’s safest place in the world has now become hers. And that’s before she turns it into her own personal fallout shelter and post-apocalypse living space.

    One day, Annie’s giving a tour when she notices everyone checking their phones and freaking the fuck out. This is it, the end of the world. We catch glimpses of news reports we saw in season one, and we hear Cal’s big speech. Annie is smart enough to know not to waste time panicking. Instead, she grabs Gayle and the two gather as many supplies as they can find. Food from the Visitor Center, blankets from the Presleys personal collection upstairs, and Annie even breaks into the case displaying one of Elvis’s guns. At the end of the world, she might need to be armed. They’re going to hunker down in the TV room, and it all seems like a good plan until Gayle takes a tumble down the stairs and breaks her leg.

    Paradise speeds through Annie and Gayle’s first 45 days in the TV room. Gayle’s injury is a doozy — Annie has reset her leg, but there is an infection, and Annie doesn’t have much to work with. The huge ash cloud has settled in, and it’s freezing, but Annie refuses to set a fire in the fireplace lest the smoke alert others that someone’s in Graceland. From the glimpses they get of what’s going on out in the streets — looting, fires, violence — that’s a smart move. Annie tries to keep Gayle’s spirits up with her Elvis impersonation, as one does. On Day 45, Gayle isn’t cold anymore, and Annie knows exactly what that means — she holds her only friend in the world until she dies and then she buries her in the Presley family plot before finally letting out every emotion she’s been feeling with one gut-wrenching scream. Annie is truly alone at the end of the world.

    Almost two years after the eruption — it’s Day 689 — the sun returns. Annie can breathe again. She can also start to grow things, which is so nice because how many cans of beans has this woman eaten and is her GI tract okay? Annie is alone, but things could be so much worse than spending your day reading in the Jungle Room and mainlining Bush’s Best; She’s tucked away safely and no one seems to bother her.

    And then someone bothers her. One day, Annie spots a group of six armed men at the gates. She grabs her gun and hides up by Elvis’s handy two-way mirror. But while these guys, led by a scruffy young guy named Link, pull Annie out of her hiding spot, they don’t seem to want to hurt her. They want to know where Elvis’s collection of vintage cars is. Link tries to talk to Annie and prove he isn’t a bad guy, and just as you think it might be working, Annie slams his head with something very heavy and makes a run for the TV room. Her safe space. She locks herself in there for three days. On that third day, the men are still in the house, but they are also cooking something that smells amazing and so she leaves the room. Finally, although still hesitant to let anyone in, Annie can see that these guys don’t want to hurt her. In fact, they’re just a big bunch of nerds. Link explains that he was in Louisville working at an REI store when the volcano erupted, and he wisely stocked up on sleeping bags and coats. He eventually ran into Geiger, an older guy who decided someone needed to travel around the country to each of the 94 nuclear power plants and attempt to shut them down before a disastrous meltdown could occur. Nerdiest of the nerds — they call him Urkel — explains that because of the ash cloud, the earth’s temperature has dropped twenty degrees. He also has a theory about a secret device that must have knocked all the power out. His buddies brush it off, but my fingers are crossed that one day he’ll learn he was dead right and he’ll drop a sarcastic “did I do that?” and we’ll all laugh about it. We need some laughs!

    While hearing about the catastrophic changes to the environment and the unfathomable death toll — Link estimates two-thirds of the U.S. population has been wiped out — these are all things we knew or, at least, could have guessed. One of the most important pieces of info dropped by this group, however, is that when they show up at Graceland, it’s been about three years since the volcano erupted. This, of course, means that Annie’s timeline has caught up with where we were in season one of Paradise.

    Link and his team assure Annie that they’ll be out of her hair soon enough, and slowly, she begins to warm up to them. She fixes Link’s broken wrist, and the team takes apart some of Elvis’s cars to use the parts elsewhere. She and Link talk about the stars and the falling satellites, about his terrible beard, and he shows her his pre-beard student ID card. (The fact that he went to Caltech tells us he’s probably more than just a sales clerk.) On the eve of the team’s departure, they all have a fancy dinner together in the dining room. Annie puts on one of the Presleys’ dresses. Link cuts back his beard. They totally want to fuck. At dinner, they play “one thing you miss/one thing you don’t,” and it takes Annie awhile, since so much of life before was hard for her, but what she misses most is giving tours here at Graceland. And so, they ask her for a tour. Eventually, Annie and Link pair off and things get hot and heavy in the Jungle Room. As someone who has been on the Graceland tour, I’m assuming this is a new addition.

    It’s a gorgeous scene that goes from the two of them talking, of Annie opening up, and then breaking down into sobs as he holds her close to him, to them in bed together. The chemistry between Shailene Woodley and Thomas Doherty is off the charts, and I buy everything they’re selling. I can’t shake the moment when Annie weeps into his shoulder. She’s been holding everything in for so long to survive, and finally being seen, being touched again after three years, is the push to just release it all. And he doesn’t back away from it. He understands it from the jump. Maybe this isn’t the speculative fiction thriller from season one, but I’m down with basking in a little story about human connection for an hour.

    The episode isn’t solely a reflective one. There are some important developments. In the morning, Link and his team are headed up to St. Louis — in order to avoid the apparently rough parts of Arkansas — and then out to Colorado … to find a secret bunker they know is out there that has enough power that could restart the world. He also mentions something dangerous in the bunker, but can’t explain further. He wants Annie to “come restart the world” with him. But in the morning, Annie has once again locked herself in the TV room. She is too scared to leave her safe place, even for Link. Link, who is suffering from a mysterious nose bleed and headaches by the way, begs her to open the door but she won’t, and he doesn’t have time to wait. Geiger comes and grabs him and reminds him how urgent it is to get to that bunker and to find and “kill Alex.” Are you also trying to list the names of everyone we know in the bunker? I cannot think of an Alex. Is “Alex” a person at all? When they leave, and Annie finally comes out of the room, she finds that Link has left her gear, a map, and a note that promises he’ll come back for her.

    This promise sustains Annie as she remains at Graceland alone once again and — surprise! — turns out to be pregnant. This promise is probably why, when a now VERY pregnant Annie hears a plane crash and sees that the wreckage and pilot are in the rough parts of Arkansas, she assumes it must be Link coming back for her, and she hops on her horse to rescue him. Out alone in the woods, Annie comes across that wrecked plane and its unconscious pilot, but it is not Link — it’s Xavier.

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    Maggie Fremont

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  • Adobe unveils new AI-powered video editing tools for Premiere

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    Adobe has announced updates for Premiere and After Effects, including new AI-powered tools that are meant to speed up your video editing tasks. In Premiere, the company’s video-editing software, it has unveiled a new AI-powered Object Mask feature that lets you easily pick and track persons or objects moving through your video clips. You simply have to hover over that object and click to generate a mask overlay in seconds. While the mask is supposed to be accurate from the start, you can adjust and resize it as needed. Adobe says the feature uses its own AI model for the feature and that the processing happens on-device. It also says that it doesn’t use your activities and data to train its models.

    The company has also given its Shape Mask tool an upgrade. You can generate its redesigned Ellipse, Rectangle and Pen masks directly from the toolbar. Further, it updated their controls to make moving or adjusting the masks more precise. The masks can now also track objects on your video clips 20 times faster than their predecessors, which means you won’t have to keep such a close eye on the status bar. Another new Premiere update lets you easily bring media from from Firefly Boards, Adobe’s AI-powered digital canvas, into the program. In addition, Adobe Stock is now fully integrated within Premiere.

    For After Effects, Adobe has rolled out an update that lets you import SVG files that are commonly used in Illustrator. You can now also build graphics and photorealistic objects inside images with 3D parametric meshes, consisting of cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, toris and planes, within the visual effects software.

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    Mariella Moon

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  • Landman Season-Premiere Recap: The Sharks Are Circling

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    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…”

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    Ben Rosenstock

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

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

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    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.

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    Scott Tobias

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

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    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.”

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    Caroline Framke

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  • The Chair Company Series-Premiere Recap: Not All That Serious

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    The Chair Company

    Life Goes By Too F**king Fast, It Really Does

    Season 1

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    Leave it to a Tim Robinson character to turn a benign public humiliation into a full-blown conspiracy.
    Photo: Virginia Sherwood/HBO

    I think of Tim Robinson’s characters as existing on a spectrum. Yes, they’re all prone to loud, sudden explosions of cartoonish rage or pain, and they’re almost all anxious, insecure weirdos obsessed with proving they’re in on the joke. But there’s a big difference between the affable “chaotic good” Tim Cramblin from Detroiters and the procession of freaks Robinson plays on his sketch show, I Think You Should Leave. And Craig Waterman, the marketing executive from the 2024 film Friendship, took Robinson into new territory with a darker and more pathetic take on the same neurotic type.

    If Friendship was Robinson’s first real character study, his mysterious new HBO comedy The Chair Company is the logical next step. Like Craig Waterman, Ron Trosper is a hard worker and a family man, doing his best to project confidence and competence at the office and at home. But unlike Craig, he’s not actually that bad at it at first. For the most part, people seem to respect Ron. He has the adoration of his wife, Barb (Lake Bell), daughter, Natalie (Sophia Lillis), and son, Seth (Will Price). He’s a project lead at Fisher Robay, overseeing an ambitious new mall development in Canton, Ohio, and seems to have the office’s support. After a surprisingly successful speech at the kickoff meeting for Canton Marketplace, though, the other shoe drops. When Ron takes a seat, the chair falls out from under him and breaks, leaving him dazed and sprawled on the floor. That public humiliation is The Chair Company’s inciting incident.

    Friendship is the obvious comparison point for the show, especially with Andrew DeYoung directing this premiere and Keegan DeWitt once again contributing a cool, slightly eerie score. But it’s also the third series co-created by Robinson and Zach Kanin, who collaborated on both Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave. There’s a common comic sensibility running through all these projects, an understanding of what people come to a Tim Robinson show to see. Take that argument between Ron and the young server in the opening scene. A celebratory family dinner turns into an embarrassing dispute when Ron bristles at the server insisting she hasn’t been to a mall since she was 14. He takes it as a personal offense, and that’s a common impulse for Ron — he’s also not a fan of his cheerful elderly coworker Douglas (Jim Downey) blowing bubbles everywhere because “life’s just really not all that serious.”

    Like most Robinson characters, Ron really cares about fitting in, fearing attention as much as he courts it. The day after the chair incident, he defuses tension at the office by making fun of himself, only to feel uncomfortable as his coworkers revel in the hilarity of the moment. So he travels down the Tecca rabbit hole, desperate to take action against the titular chair company.

    Here’s where “Life Goes By Too F**king Fast, It Really Does” settles into surreal conspiracy thriller mode, a feeling I expect to stick around. The Tecca website’s phone number only gets him to National Business Solutions, which refuses to transfer him to the manufacturer. Messaging with a customer service agent doesn’t accomplish anything, and the obscure support email address bounces back. “What the fuck!?” Ron says, comically dumbfounded.

    Most of this premiere is about kicking off Ron’s investigation into Tecca, but it’s already interesting to note what the show is and isn’t interested in showing. We really don’t see much of the Trosper family, all things considered; at this juncture, his wife and kids are all (intentionally) archetypes, blandly supportive projections of the traditional fantasy of a loving, stable nuclear family. We know that Seth is looking into colleges, and Ron is continually adding photos and songs to Natalie’s rehearsal dinner slideshow, but that’s about it. The episode prioritizes strange narrative detours over conventional character-building, and I don’t mind that choice for the time being.

    Take the hilarious, unnamed janitor character, who shows up twice: first vehemently denying that his “inside wheelbarrow” goes outside, then appearing outside with the wheelbarrow after all. There’s also Ron’s coworker Amanda, who fully understands that he didn’t intentionally look up her skirt while collapsed on the floor, but still feels the need to report it to HR. Everything at work suddenly seems to be unraveling, especially with annoying Douglas blowing bubbles everywhere and distracting Doris when Ron’s trying to get footage to document her hip problem and the risk of an unsafe chair. (Someone on the phone told him Tecca Legal would contact him directly if there’s proof someone could get hurt.)

    The premiere does get pretty harrowing toward the end, beginning with Ron’s visit to the fenced-off building at the old Tecca address in Newark, Ohio. He finds some weird nudes in a printer and what looks like … a giant inflated red ball? And then, right when an old deviled egg sends him on a panicked run to the restroom, he hears footsteps and a long scream. It feels like something from Beau Is Afraid. He’s forced to flee before he can even wipe properly.

    Back at work, Ron meets with an exec named Brenda and the head of legal for the Canton development. Apparently, teenagers were drinking at the site last night and one of them almost died. Also, a teacher was there, and he was shirtless.

    It’s a weird and underexplained scenario, but the issue is enough to get Ron to lock back into his job and set Tecca aside … for a few minutes. When he leaves for the night, a man swiftly follows him across the parking lot and tells him to stop looking into the chair company, beating him with a baton briefly before walking away. The scene doesn’t stop there, though. When Ron gets his bearings, he stands up and runs after his attacker, the chased becoming the chaser. It’s notable that Ron doesn’t pick up the dropped baton to protect himself, nor does he continue the chase after the guy escapes his reach by leaving his unbuttoned shirt behind. He just stops.

    At this stage, it’s impossible to tell what all of this will add up to in the long run. (It reminds me of Nathan Fielder’s underrated series The Curse a lot in that way, and in others.) But so far, The Chair Company is as funny and strange and watchable as I hoped — different from anything else Tim Robinson has done, but also recognizably a Tim Robinson project. I don’t know what any of this shit is, and I’m fucking scared.

    • “Why the hell are they trying to take that damn thing? They fucking love taking that thing.”

    • “I guess I shouldn’t have had that last Cheez-It this morning.”

    • Three-way tie for funniest physical comedy moment of the episode: Ron’s panicked spasming in the cramped space beneath his desk; his loud dinner prep; and Douglas patting down Doris’s hair with printer paper to wipe the bubbles off.

    • Good background line: While Ron is on the phone eyeing Doris, you can hear her saying, “Oh, fuck! You gave me that paper too hard.”

    • “I just think HR should know that you saw up my skirt. On my birthday.”

    • Ron leaves an earnest comment on the YouTube video for “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce about thinking you’ll do something with your life, but not. Curious how those deeper fears will play into his Tecca mania.

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    Ben Rosenstock

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  • Gen V Season-Premiere Recap: Brave New World

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    Gen V

    New Year, New U

    Season 2

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    Jordan and Emma aren’t taking their forced reenrollment all that well, but they’re still doing better than Marie’s time living as a dropout.
    Photo: Jasper Savage/Prime

    Welcome back to school! How was everyone’s summer break? Hopefully you had a much better few months than the rising sophomores of Gen V. Either way, there’s no time like the fall semester to start anew. An apple cider a day keeps the fascism away, right? The Boys has been an explicitly political show from the beginning, but recent seasons have leaned harder into real-world parallels, especially with Homelander’s ascent to governing power in the season-four finale. It was a bit unsettling last year to witness the supe-supremacist speech where Homelander vowed to take revenge on America’s “enemies” and ordered his puppet, incoming president Calhoun, to declare martial law. But the college-campus setting of Gen V has allowed the spinoff to carve out its own identity, coming at many of the same satirical targets from a different angle.

    Take the recap early in “New Year, New U,” which updates us on where The Boys left off while filtering the big world changes down to the campus level. At least among conservative-coded Hometeamers and supe supremacists, it’s accepted knowledge that Robert Singer and Starlight colluded to kill Victoria Neuman, a deep-state conspiracy that necessitated Homelander taking control. Now, Godolkin University is “free from the woke agenda” and staffed entirely by supes, including the mysterious new dean, Cipher (a marvelously creepy Hamish Linklater). It’s pretty clear where some of these ideas originate: Rightwing leadership is hellbent on reshaping higher education in America right now.

    Much of season one revolved around a supe-killing virus engineered by scientists in the Woods at Dean Shetty’s instruction; here, that’s not so relevant anymore, even though we know it’s still very much a factor in the parent show. Based on the opening flashback to 1967, just two years after God U was founded, the focus this time will be Project Odessa, led by Thomas Godolkin (Wicked’s Ethan Slater) himself.

    This premiere has a lot to take care of, introducing new threats while untangling the messy fallout from the season finale. We last saw Cate and Sam taking power as the “new Guardians of Godolkin” after liberating Shetty’s supe test subjects and pinning the death of 12 innocents on Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Emma. Season two has no interest in limiting itself to a jail cell, though, so right away we learn that Cate has persuaded the administration to let the kids reenroll. Well, to let Jordan and Emma reenroll, since Marie is off the grid and Andre is dead.

    We lost actor Chance Perdomo at the far-too-young age of 27 last year, and the show has a duty to wrap up his arc as naturally as possible while leaving space to mourn both the actor and the character. And honestly, this premiere does a pretty good job with a tough situation. We don’t need to actually see Andre’s failed escape attempt; hearing Jordan tell the story near the end of the episode is powerful enough. It’s easy to picture Andre making the rash choice to brute-force his way out when a safer method (an open maintenance pipe) falls through.

    But easily the best Andre tribute of the episode is the scene between his father and Emma. When Emma walks into Polarity’s house, she finds him depressed, drunk, and full of self-loathing. It’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll ultimately convince him to get back up and start looking into Cipher — the man was present at Elmira when Andre died, and the prospect of revenge is tempting — but it also makes sense that Polarity initially wouldn’t see the point. Even setting aside his own role in “shoving Andre into the Vought machine,” there’s no way he can get his son back now. Sean Patrick Thomas’s performance here is deeply affecting, especially his disbelief at the idea of rectifying this somehow (“He was all I had!”). Thomas has always been one of the strongest performers on the show, and here he reaches new levels.

    Emma kind of takes on the protagonist role for much of this premiere, and it suits her surprisingly well. She’s smart enough to understand the necessity of complying — she and Jordan read canned PR statements about their exoneration after being wrongfully accused — but also brave enough to proceed with her investigation of Cipher and search for Marie instead of just keeping her head down. Drowning her sorrows at a frat party, she happens to see a video of wounded Hometeamers lying in their own blood and recognizes Marie’s handiwork. So she gets Jordan’s reluctant approval to go find their friend, mentioning that Andre was the first person to help her see herself as a hero.

    Marie has been through a hell of a day fighting off Dogknott (Zach McGowan), a bounty hunter with dog-like abilities who tracked her to a motel in Weehawken. All Marie really wants is to find her sister Annabeth, but she’s getting nowhere, and it doesn’t help that she can’t stop bringing attention to herself by beating up Hometeamers. Starlight herself has to step in to save her during the brutal Dogknott brawl, and she has some advice Marie doesn’t want to hear: Take a deal and return to God U. She wants her to look into Project Odessa, which Vought is apparently resuming.

    In the dramatic final scene, Emma and Jordan find Marie, leading to the expected fight about Marie abandoning the group and arguably leading Andre to make a foolish sacrifice. But when Cate follows them there, everything escalates. Now, Cate has always been a bit inscrutable; her motivations are sometimes hard to parse, which makes her the show’s most potentially interesting character but also its most frustrating. In this episode, she’s still trying to play both sides: grieving Andre and “protecting” her friends, but also being a huge narc because she has no actual leverage over Cipher and Vought.

    Cate’s efforts to manipulate Marie this time are laughable; she’s not on her A-game, and nobody trusts her enough to let those dangerous fingers anywhere near them. Case in point: Jordan blasting her into an electrical box when she reaches out for Marie. To make matters worse, Marie can’t risk touching Cate to heal her skull. All they can do is leave her to die.

    Would Gen V really kill off Cate at this stage? I doubt it, especially since the cast is already down a major cast member. But you never really know with this bold, brutal franchise. Good thing we already have two more episodes available.

    • Those explosive deaths in the flashback are basically Gen V dunking you headfirst back into this world. The tentacles shooting out of a man’s ass are particularly memorable.

    • Another signature gross supe moment: Jordan punches a guy mid-butt-chug, causing him to explode beer (and whatever else) all over a group of people.

    • Not a ton from Sam in this episode, but he’s with Justine now. Emma also gets a nice scene declining his truce offer and telling him off for, you know, killing people. At least Cate is still around to mind-control him into guiltlessness!

    • Linklater’s performance is a real highlight of this premiere, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of him. We don’t know much about Cipher or his powers yet, and that blank-slate quality makes him all the more menacing — along with the moment when he almost sticks Cate’s hand in a blender.

    • Zach McGowan will always be Jody from Shameless to me.

    • Apparently Emma’s new party buddy worked with Jacob Elordi and already has a role secured in the sequel to Saltburn, titled Saltburnt.

    • RIP to Chance Perdomo, to whom this season is dedicated.

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    Ben Rosenstock

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  • ‘Disclaimer’ Series Premiere: Cate Blanchett and Alfonso Cuarón Are Here for the Prestige Crown

    ‘Disclaimer’ Series Premiere: Cate Blanchett and Alfonso Cuarón Are Here for the Prestige Crown

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    Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney beware of narrative and form to recap the two-episode premiere of Disclaimer, the Apple TV+ miniseries starring Cate Blanchett. They discuss Alfonso Cuarón as a filmmaker, his history of loosely adapting works, and the decision to utilize narration throughout the story (1:29). Along the way, they talk about how the show leans into suspense instead of surprise, as well as its stunning visual style (18:41). Later, they break down how each of the main characters are initially presented to the audience (35:02).

    Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney
    Producer: Kai Grady
    Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Joanna Robinson

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  • Abbott Elementary Season-Premiere Recap: The Cat’s Out the Bag!

    Abbott Elementary Season-Premiere Recap: The Cat’s Out the Bag!

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    Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Disney

    Summer is firmly over, and few things ring in the transition into autumn like new episodes of Abbott Elementary. Coming off a strike-impacted third season that coincided with more buzz than ever surrounding the show, Abbott gifts us a solid premiere episode, signifying how ready the cast and crew are for the new season. The show is no longer television’s Rookie of the Year; Abbott is now established in the industry, and with a whopping 22-episode season, the writers and actors have room to breathe and really flesh out story lines in true sitcom fashion. We’re even getting a crossover with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so it’s safe to say real television is back, baby.

    Not much has changed in the halls of Abbott Elementary: Jacob still hates Mr. Morton, Ava avoids work at all costs (she declares that action is her least favorite thing to take), the teachers remind the kids how much better they are than New Jersey, and Janine shares stolen glances with Gregory over their students’ heads. However, these stolen glances are no longer of the will-they, won’t-they variety. Following last season’s finale, which culminated in a Janine-and-Gregory kiss, the pair have moved forward with their connection and are testing the waters romantically. Here is an example of the delicate yet exciting place Abbott finds itself in four seasons in; the choices made now will determine if it makes it through the gauntlet to legacy-sitcom status. I’m particularly interested in how Janine and Gregory move forward since fan reception to romantic relationships can be particularly precarious depending on which way the wind blows. Some fans were already sick of the will-they, won’t-they tension after a mere two seasons, while others, like myself, reveled in the tension. Now, we get to find out if this relationship is in it for the long haul, like The Office’s Jim and Pam, or merely a blip, like Parks and Recreation’s Ann and Andy. Or could this be a classic breakup-to-make-up situation, like New Girl’s Jess and Nick? There are many possible avenues, and watching it unfold in real time is what makes television so entertaining.

    For now, we have no idea what Janine and Gregory’s future holds, which is perfectly fine because we get to have fun living in the moment of the early days of their romance. We get cute moments that play on their idiosyncracies, like Janine telling Gregory she would never take him somewhere without buttered noodles and Gregory uncharacteristically wearing Janine’s lipstick kiss on his cheek. They’re adorable as they try to play coy at work despite everyone already knowing the advancement in their relationship, with Ava considering the sneaking around an affront to their intelligence. Their co-workers have no problem humoring them, but once the students start to pick up on the vibes, Ava puts pressure on them to go public so she won’t get in trouble by bringing an HR representative (Warren, one of Janine’s opps from the district) to the school in hopes of forcing their hand. True to their personalities, Janine advocates for keeping things under wraps, while Gregory wants to come clean, noting there’s nothing professionally wrong with what they’re doing as long as they’re honest about it.

    After Janine awkwardly avoids a conversation with Warren, Gregory begins to worry that she has cold feet regarding her feelings. Jacob assures him that Janine is deeply in “like” with him, so he shouldn’t have anything to worry about. So when Janine realizes she forgot her presentation for the back-to-school staff meeting (which is very important as she’s pitching a field trip to the aquarium, and “if the kids don’t go to the aquarium, they fail the SATs”), Gregory plays the perfect boyfriend and runs to her apartment to retrieve it during his free period. He barely makes it back in time before bursting into the meeting right as Janine runs out of stalling time and handing her back her keys. The staff starts grilling them with questions about their evident closeness, including coming to and from work together with their overnight duffel bags in tow, until they break under pressure — the pressure being Mr. Morton’s accusation that the duffel bags were being used to sell drugs. Janine blurts out that they’re having sex, officially letting the cat out of the bag.

    Janine immediately tries to stuff the cat back in the bag, causing Gregory to initiate an honest conversation about why she wants to keep things private. She admits that she’s fearful because it wasn’t successful the last time she made something official (I can’t wait for Tariq’s first cameo of the season), and she really wants things to work out this time. Gregory pulls Janine into his arms, soothing her anxiety by reminding her that this time is different. They decide to come clean with HR, this time leaving out the sex portion, thankfully. Gregory and Janine finally sit down with Warren and Ava to spill the details of their coupling. Janine treats it like a therapy session, omitting anything about sex but oversharing to the point where she tries to bring the conversation to when she hit puberty in 11th grade, prompting a fantastic Tyler James Williams deadpan. Warren stops her there, saying all he needs to know is their current relationship status. For the first time, Janine and Gregory publicly declare that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. With everything on the table, Warren makes a record of the relationship, giving a backhanded blessing (I love this rivalry) and allowing them to move forward with the romance.

    While Janine and Gregory formalize their relationship, the staff deals with the repercussions of a PGA golf course currently under construction a few blocks from Abbott, the first sign of which being a new white student that Ava mistakes for a Victorian-era ghost at the West Philly school. Apart from the influx of white people in the neighborhood eager to live near the course, the siphoning of resources that are necessary to build such a project immediately affects the school. A water pipe bursts, traffic is unbearable, the power is faulty, and the gas shuts off as construction ensues. Ava deflects complaints, claiming there’s nothing she can do since it’s a city-backed project.

    When a student’s tooth falls out while they’re trying to chew a frozen chicken nugget since the cafeteria couldn’t heat them without gas, Melissa puts her connections to use to try and improve conditions. Her construction-worker cousin, Tommy, tells her that the golf course is cutting corners by using nonunion workers. She proposes to tattle to the city or have her cousin kill all their pets. Obviously, they choose the former. With word of Abbott’s discontent rumbling, an attorney representing the golf course makes an appearance at the school. He apologizes with the timbre of a politician, persuading them of the value the golf course will add before giving out gift cards, ergonomic chairs, and new computers. Then he promises that the workers will be unionized by the following week. I know when something feels too good to be true, and it seems as though Abbott has introduced a new villain.

    • I love this “Jacob can’t read” conspiracy theory. I hope it becomes a running gag along with his hatred for Morton. Speaking of: Watching him take the beef to HR was hilarious, but Mr. Johnson accusing Melissa of flirting via lunch takeout menus takes the cake.

    • I’m very biased, as I live next to one, but I’m happy Abbott Elementary is shedding light on how golf courses use an inordinate amount of resources.

    • Finally, here are my favorite lines of the episode:

    Ava on Janine and Gregory: “We know what two people look like when they’re hunching hard.” I never thought I would hear hunching on network TV, so thank you, Janelle James, for that amazing delivery.

    Mr. Johnson after Janine admits that she’s having sex with Gregory — not that she’s a drug dealer: “This is even worse than I thought. What people won’t do for money.”

    Barbara, squaring up to the golf-course lawyer: “Your little construction project has put quite a strain on our lives. We got a white child now. You wanna get his parents involved?”

    Ava when Warren says she can’t sell jewelry the students make on Etsy because of child-labor laws: “Is it really work if they love what they do?”

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    Ile-Ife Okantah

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  • ’Salt Lake City’ Season 5 Premiere! Plus, ‘Orange County’ and ‘Dubai.’

    ’Salt Lake City’ Season 5 Premiere! Plus, ‘Orange County’ and ‘Dubai.’

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    Rachel Lindsay and Callie Curry begin this week’s episode by sharing their opinions on the recent Bachelorette drama, before moving on to recap Season 18, Episode 11 of The Real Housewives of Orange County (19:41). Then, after giving their final thoughts on The Real Housewives of Dubai Season 2 reunion (37:07), Jodi Walker makes her triumphant return to break down The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 5 premiere (51:28).

    Host: Rachel Lindsay
    Guests: Callie Curry and Jodi Walker
    Producer: Devon Baroldi
    Theme: Devon Renaldo

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Rachel Lindsay

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  • How to Choose the Right Festival to Premiere Your Movie

    How to Choose the Right Festival to Premiere Your Movie

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    It’s fall festival season! Matt is joined by Peter Kujawski, the chairman of Focus Features, to discuss the science of premiering a movie at a film festival. Peter provides his expertise on why you bring a certain movie to a certain festival, the risk involved, and which specific festivals are best suited for certain types of films. They also discuss the politics of these festivals jockeying to attain the world premieres of splashy titles, and which festival award is the most coveted (02:51). Matt ends the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (26:10).

    For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click here.

    Email us your thoughts! thetown@spotify.com

    Host: Matt Belloni
    Guest: Peter Kujawski
    Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez
    Theme Song: Devon Renaldo

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Matthew Belloni

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  • Zoe Kravitz And Channing Tatum Drip Heart Eye Goo At The L.A. Premiere Of ‘Blink Twice’

    Zoe Kravitz And Channing Tatum Drip Heart Eye Goo At The L.A. Premiere Of ‘Blink Twice’

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    Love was definitely in the air for Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum at the Los Angeles premiere of their new film Blink Twice on Thursday, August 8 at the DGA theater.

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    In case you’ve been hiding under a rock — this is the highly anticipated film that serves as Zoë’s directorial debut (she also co-wrote and produced the project). You can check out the latest trailer below:

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: JC Olivera / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    The film stars Naomi Ackie as a cocktail waitress named Frida and Channing Tatum as tech billionaire Slater King. When Frida “accidentally” bumps into King while working his fundraising gala, the chemistry is undeniable. By the end of the night, he invites her and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Wild nights blend into sun soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    There’s a lot of famous faces in this one — Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment and Levon Hawke play King’s friends.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: JC Olivera / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Liz Claribel, Adria Arjona and Trew Mullen play the other ladies invited along with Frida and Jess.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    We’re so glad the premiere could get the gang back together.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Geena Davis also has a role in the film. We actually adored her character and are excited for everyone to see.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Zoë’s Big Little Lies fam Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern showed up to support her at the premiere.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Alicia Keys and her bonus daughter Nicole also posed with Zoë on the carpet.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    We really can’t get over these shots of Zoë and Channing though. It’s no wonder these two made movie magic together!

    Blink Twice is in theaters only August 23!

    Fair warning — the film is rated R for strong violent content, sexual assault, drug use and language throughout, and some sexual references.

    Check out a first look featurette below:

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    Janeé Bolden

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  • The Star-Studded Hollywood Premiere of ‘The Bear’ Featured Two Chicago Restaurants

    The Star-Studded Hollywood Premiere of ‘The Bear’ Featured Two Chicago Restaurants

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    When The Bear needed to source seafood for its star-studded “Fishes” episode, they turned to Publican Quality Meats’ Rob Levitt.

    Levitt, who had a bit onscreen role in Season 2, says show reps asked him how to properly cook lobster. He ended up blanching them without knowing what they would be used for until he watched the award-winning episode.

    “And then I see Jamie Lee Curtis ‘cooking’ the lobsters that I cooked,” Levitt says. Curtis would win an Emmy for her role.

    As Season 3 goes live for streaming at 8 p.m. Central Time on Wednesday, June 26 on Hulu, a contingent of Chicago’s restaurant community in town for Hollywood’s official premiere party for The Bear at the El Capitan Theatre. Both Publican Quality Meats’ Levitt and One Off Hospitality Group’s Donnie Madia and Loaf Lounge’s Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader, Ben Lustbader, and Cristina Gandarilla. Madia appeared on Season 2 in a scene filmed at Avec in West Loop, while Mispagel-Lustbader worked on Season 1 and famously created a chocolate cake for the show, inspired by Portillo’s. They were the only two Chicago businesses represented in the lineup. Others included Pizzeria Bianco, Chris Bianco’s famous pizzeria with locations in Arizona and LA; Night + Market, LA’s famous Thai street food specialist; and Dave Beran from Pasjoli, a French restaurant in LA. Beran started his career in Chicago, working at Mk the Restaurant, Tru, and Alinea.

    Photo by Emma McIntyre/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images

    US-ENTERTAINMENT-TELEVISION-STREAMING

    Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

    Premiere For FX’s “The Bear” Season 3 - Arrivals

    Photo by Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic

    Tyler, the Creator enjoyed the cookies from Loaf Lounge.

    Loaf Lounge is celebrating the Season 3 premiere with free slices of cake at 9 a.m. on Thursday, June 27. Mispagel-Lustbader says she’s kept in touch with actor Lionel Boyce, who plays the show’s pastry chef, Marcus Brooks. The two worked closely in Season 1 as Mispagel-Lustbader shared dessert prowess: “Lionel came and said ‘hi’ to us right away, and was very kind as always!” Mispagel-Lustbader texts. “He’s been into Loaf Lounge and has been really great every time we’ve chatted and worked together.”

    The show’s producers, including Park Ridge native Courtney Storer, a food consultant on the series, and her brother — creator Christopher Storer — have leaned on Chicago’s restaurants to ensure the show’s authenticity. They returned the favor at the premiere and created an amusement park-like atmosphere with stalls built to look like Publican Quality Meats and other restaurants. Levitt was blown away that crews had somehow built a butcher shop just based on emails and photos: “It was beautiful,” he says.

    Levitt and Publican Quality Meats sous chef Kyle Huff served Italian sausage with marinated peppers — they shipped the meat to LA early because they wanted to make the sausages. They also made a crostini with PQM mortadella. Levitt says Matty Matheson, who plays Neil Fak on the show, complimented him on the latter.

    Four folks hanging out behind a counter.

    (From left to right) Donnie Madia, Heidi Hageman, Rob Levitt, and Klyle Huff poses at a stall made to look like their Chicago restaurant.
    One Off Hospitality Group

    Two folks posing outdoors, one wearing a blue top, other a tan suit.

    One Off Hospitality Group’s Donnie Madia (right) poses with The Bear culinary producer Courtney Storer.
    One Off Hospitality Group

    A table of cakes and cookies.

    Loaf Lounge partnered with local bakers at the Hollywood premiere.
    Courtesy of Loaf Lounge

    Loaf Lounge teamed with a baker local to LA, Nicole Bakes Cakes, who created the signature chocolate cake for the party. Loaf Lounge also served ruby sprinkle cookies. Rapper Tyler, the Creator was a fan: “I think he had about six and was very expressive about enjoying them!” Mispagel-Lustbader texts.

    Another highlight came from actress Gillian Jacobs, who plays Tiffany Jerimovich, ex-wife of Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Richie Jerimovich. The former Community star proved curious about the operation and asked Levitt questions about PQM’s methods, showing genuine enthusiasm.

    Two folks posing

    Loaf Lounge’s Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader (left) reconnects with Lionel Boyce, a star of “The Bear.”
    Courtesy of Loaf Lounge

    Beyond the seafood from “Fishes,” Levitt also cut most of the steaks used in Season 2. The TV crew had specific requests, including dry-aged beef. Apparently, the show purchased a ton of product from Publican, including guanciale. Levitt’s favorite request was where to source duck prosciutto. He decided to make it himself. Those details make a difference: “It wasn’t just a prop or afterthought,” Levitt says. “The meat is treated more like a character.”

    When Levitt arrives home, Publican Quality Meats celebrate the premiere with an Italian beef special running from Thursday, June 27, through Saturday, June 29. The beef is made with top round and uses a French loaf baked by Greg Wade, the James Beard-award-winning baker at Publican Quality Bread. Caruso Provisions provide the giardiniera.

    Mispagel-Lustbader texts about a “refreshed excitement for the cake” back home and says she was proud of repping Chicago on the West Coast: “I think a lot of our regulars are feeling a sense of pride that their neighborhood spot got to shine in LA for a night,” she text. “I think we made some new West Coast friends, too.”

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    Ashok Selvam

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  • ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Premiere Instant Reactions

    ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Premiere Instant Reactions

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    Listen as the Midnight Boys break down Season 2, Episode 1 of House of the Dragon like only they know how. Along the way, the guys discuss whether the show leans toward Team Green or Team Black. They then, of course, get into the chaos that came with Blood and Cheese. Later, the Midnight Meter is broken out to officially score this loaded season premiere.

    Hosts: Charles Holmes, Van Lathan, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman
    Producers: Aleya Zenieris, Jonathan Kermah, and Steve Ahlman
    Social: Jomi Adeniran
    Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal

    Subscribe: Spotify / Apple Podcasts

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    Charles Holmes

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  • Evil Season-Premiere Recap: The Mother of the Living Antichrist

    Evil Season-Premiere Recap: The Mother of the Living Antichrist

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    Evil

    How to Split an Atom

    Season 4

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    5 stars

    Photo: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

    Evil friends, what a bittersweet way to kick off a new season. As I’m sure you’ve heard, as I’m sure you’ve screamed to the heavens (or to hell, you do you), we are embarking upon Evil’s fourth and final season. The one silver lining I keep in my head is that, at the very least, knowing this is the last hoorah, Robert and Michelle King will certainly be going for broke. Not that they ever don’t. It’s why we love this show, right? Okay, never mind, this is the worst. Isn’t there a demon I can sell my soul to for a renewal or something? Netflix? (Just kidding.) (Or not.)

    Unsurprisingly, we’re starting off the season with a bang. And I’m not even talking about that hilarious, oddly hot sex scene with Kristen and Andy in the Bouchard kitchen. But also I guess I’m not not talking about that? The horniest knife work I’ve ever seen! But really, we should kick things off where the show does, with that glorious opening scene in which Kristen takes in the news that Leland has hijacked her eggs and tossed in his sperm to create the Antichrist. The Antichrist will be born in 38 days, and Leland will raise him, and Kristen thinks that’s honestly just hilarious. No, seriously. As only Kristen Bouchard can, she laughs and laughs at the thought of Leland raising a child. “I can’t think of any greater torture than to give you a baby,” she says, thwarting his plans to get under her skin. “I giggle at the thought of you waking up at 3 a.m. because the Antichrist needs changing.” Oh, reader, I giggle too. Leland always feels a few steps ahead of Kristen and our merry band of assessors, so whenever she can get the better of him, even for a minute, it is delicious. Oh, it’s so good to be back.

    After Kristen saunters out of that baby shower (what’s on the Antichrist’s registry?) laughing like a goddamned boss, she gets down to business. Sheryl, who of course has known all along that this was Leland’s plan, is now banned from the Bouchard house and forbidden from seeing her granddaughters. I still can’t get a handle on what Sheryl’s endgame is here. Does she have one? Is she simply possessed and loving it? Is there any part of who she used to be before Leland lit her bed on fire (literally, remember)? She remains a mystery.

    Kristen’s plan, though, is crystal clear: In her life, in her house, religion is out and science is in, baby. She’s not even entertaining the possibility of this stuff being real anymore. She wants things to go back to normal. No more demons and goblins and Antichrists, just hot kitchen sex and refusing to take her kids to Sunday Mass. Normal!

    She carries this new outlook with her to work, too. The gang is summoned to St. Joseph’s for their next assignment with Father Ignatius. Thank God, this sweet man is back to make us laugh but also, mostly, to make us cry — a picture of Monsignor Korecki up on the wall in his office? Be still my heart. He’s apparently just filling in until the Vatican sends someone else, but come on, we need him. We deserve him.

    He hands them our case of the week: People are protesting a particle-accelerator lab called Garrow Research Facility, claiming it could open the gates to hell, and the scientists there have requested that our trio investigate to prove those protestors wrong. At the facility, the scientists, led by a physicist named Ethan, don’t help their cause — they’re super-shady, especially when the team starts asking about the whereabouts of a woman who used to work there and was part of a viral video of people performing a blood sacrifice at the lab. In the video, they stab her — it looks super-fake, but their excuses for why she isn’t around also sound super-fake.

    Nothing’s adding up, and when David heads back to his little electric scooter — because Evil can find ways to make anything, even checking out a particle-accelerator facilty, just a little extra kooky — one of the custodial workers, Mateo, has left him a note that says “They’re lying” with a time and place to meet him.

    And so they meet. Mateo tells the whole story: When they were building the accelerator, they came across a huge sinkhole miles and miles deep; instead of trying to fill it, they cemented over it — but something’s down there. Mateo has his own video, in which smoke starts to fill the accelerator loop and some sort of creature is obscured by it — a big creature. We see only its outline, but it’s enough to be like, Yeah, sure, that could come from the depths of hell.

    Well, for us — its not enough for new, skeptic-on-steroids Kristen. Back in the car, she immediately asks Ben to debunk it, something she requests he now do immediately, and he shows her a video he made using some app that can insert “angels” into videos. Mateo’s video could easily be a fake. The way Katja Herbers gleefully tells her friend “It’s good news, David, there’s no monster coming out of hell” should be studied in universities across this country. It is so good. Why are they canceling this show, again?

    Things get more muddled when the crew finally meets with the new Vatican rep, Father La Russo. La Russo informs them that the Vatican isn’t actually worried about the gates of hell being opened but rather about the particle accelerator creating a chain of quantum black holes that could swallow the earth. Admittedly, that is much freakier than the gates of hell. Science is crazy, people. Ben is of the understanding that something like this occurring is nearly impossible, but La Russo wants more than just nearly impossible odds — back to the lab the team goes.

    This time, the trio splits up. David hops on his cute li’l scooter again and heads down to the section of the loop Mateo had directed them to. Once he’s left alone, weird things start happening. Mainly, he watches as a giant monster bug demon thing comes slithering out of the hole with the woman from the video’s head on it and she’s still whispering for help. Maybe I take back the thing about the black holes being freakier — it’s a tie.

    Kristen and Ben go with Ethan to check out all the safety protocols the lab has to prevent black holes from swallowing the earth. (God, I missed the insane sentences doing Evil recaps allows me to write.) Everything looks normal and up to code, but then Ethan invites them both to actually step into the accelerator, which, like, I know nothing about quantum physics, but I do know not to hop into a particle accelerator. Especially one that may or may not be related to the gates of hell. You know my girl Kristen is an immediate “no” when Ethan makes the offer.

    You can probably guess that things go terribly wrong: The accelerator starts up — later, they blame it on a test run, but come on, that thing turned on by itself! — and an ion beam … well, I don’t know how to tell you this exactly, but Ben takes an ion beam directly to the face. In the exact moment it happens, he sees flashes of some weird shit but gets a clean bill of health from several doctors. That sounds all well and good, but then Ben goes home and has a wild vision/hallucination/actual sighting of yet another giant buglike demon. Are all our demons this season going to be bug-esque? I miss Ben’s freaky-deaky horny night ghost, but this development is interesting. For some reason, he doesn’t fill in his buddies on this post-ion-beam occurrence, and that is frustrating. Why do these people who have seen the absolutely weirdest shit together not trust one another when the unexplainable happens.

    David does the same thing: He lies to Ben and Kristen about his experience with the sinkhole at B33. Instead, he confides in Sister Andrea. Yeah, she’s a real one, but so are Ben and Kristen. Everyone needs all of the information! I am concerned! During his visit with Sister Andrea, David also informs her of another vision he had, of an angel telling him, “Woe to Babylon in 38 days.” Sounds like a prophecy about the end of the world. And no, you’re not wrong: We’ve heard about something else happening in 38 days, too.

    The gang heads back to the particle accelerator one last time, and in true Evil fashion, we get something wild happening with no concrete answer. On security cameras, they watch as Mateo, who has apparently copped to blackmailing the facility and making up all of those videos (yeah, right), heads over to the sinkhole. It looks as though he might jump in, but the sinkhole isn’t fully visible in the shot. We see his arms swinging around, we see him moving around in the bottom of the frame, but who can tell what’s happening here? Then Mateo’s gone. When they run over to check out the hole situation and the whole situation, Mateo is still gone, noises like his screaming are coming up from the bowels of the earth, and there’s blood and huge scratch marks on the outer edge of the sinkhole. Are they from his trying to hold on for dear life, or are they from a giant bug monster demon dragging him to the depths of hell? Is it weird that the latter actually seems more plausible?

    Back at St. Joseph’s, they tell La Russo and Ignatius that their findings are inconclusive. However, if they are really looking for a reason to shut the place down, their safety codes are not totally up to snuff. La Russo wonders if they can do so before the particle accelerator is officially opened … in 38 days.

    Thankfully, David doesn’t keep everything to himself any longer. His friends clock his strange reaction to that number and ask him to spill once they’re alone. He had a dream, he says, about a warning that the world would end in 38 days with the birth of the Antichrist. Once again, Kristen cannot hold in her laughter. “I’m having a son in 38 days,” she tells them. Things are about to get wild.

    Actually, things are already wild. While all of this particle-accelerator stuff is happening, something even stranger is going on right under Kristen’s nose. Remember how Leland and Sheryl kidnapped Andy and kept him catatonic in his closet? Remember that? Well, Andy gets a phone call from Leland, and good ol’ Lee plays him that version of “Feliz Navidad” we’ve heard coming from Leland’s toy. Andy is suddenly in a trance. Yes, he knows where he’s supposed to go, he tells Leland before hanging up and leaving his house. “Feliz Navidad” is a trigger noise for whatever the hell they did to Andy, and while I like the guy and want the best for him, that’s just hilarious.

    Later, we find him back on that meat slab in the closet, fully catatonic again, with both Leland and Sheryl trying to brainwash him for their own benefit. Leland repeats, “Why is your wife fucking a priest,” to attempt to sow discord in their marriage, and Sheryl repeats, “You need Sheryl back in the house,” because, well, you can figure that one out. I hope at some point their commands start to get crossed and it leads to chaos. But, like, the fun kind. Not this kind, in which Andy shows up at the rectory and wants to start a fight with David for fucking his wife. I don’t want Kristen’s boys fighting like this!

    David immediately calls Kristen to have a little check-in on their friendship in light of this accusation, which honestly is adorable. The cute part doesn’t last long because once David finally tells her why he’s worried that the two of them aren’t good anymore, she gets pissed. “Do I have feelings for you? Yeah! But my husband needs to shut the fuck up!” she yells before marching home, chugging a canned margarita and spitting some of it at a picture of her and Andy.

    The next morning, she confronts him, and he continues to press her on how far she and David have gone. She tells him to shape up or ship out. In short, Leland’s plan worked spectacularly. Now, we’ll have to wait and see exactly what Leland wants out of this and how far he’ll go to get it.

    • Evil’s opening credits remain the best in the biz, and it isn’t even close.

    • Sister Andrea may be the busiest nun in New York. She has a revolving door of guests, including David and Lynn and, surprise, surprise, Kurt. Sister Andrea’s frustrated “Oh my God” when he busts in is hilarious on so many levels. I mean, we do know she’s tight with the big guy. I missed our girl!

    • Demon Kristen is back taunting David, and yes, she too drinks canned margs.

    • Still laughing about Ben’s homemade angel video in which he yells, “I guess I was wrong about science!” I love Ben with all my stupid little heart.

    • Evil’s got jokes! Lynn, who is sneaking out to chat with Sister Andrea about becoming a nun, would rather lie to her mom about sneaking around with her boyfriend than tell her the truth. What a world.

    • Wait, there’s more jokes. Not that Leland is ever the “good angel,” but I love his hovering over Kristen’s shoulder and trying to be gentle about the whole Antichrist-baby-against-her-will thing and then switching shoulders to be downright demonic about it.

    • Is there a creepier sentence in the history of sentences than “Your egg and my sperm, destined for each other from the beginning.”

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    Maggie Fremont

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  • The ‘Survivor’ Season 46 Premiere Is Here!

    The ‘Survivor’ Season 46 Premiere Is Here!

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    And … we’re back! Tyson and Riley are joined by Carolyn “Coco” Wiger from Season 44 to talk about their impression of the season premiere of Survivor Season 46. They begin the episode by describing how nicknames are created and what was correct with their preseason predictions. Then, they discuss the Season 46 alliances that they’d choose, Carolyn’s secret Reddit group, and their overall thoughts on the premiere.

    Hosts: Tyson Apostol and Riley McAtee
    Guest: Carolyn Wiger
    Producer: Ashleigh Smith
    Theme Song: Devon Renaldo

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    Tyson Apostol

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  • ‘Shogun’ Series Premiere Recap

    ‘Shogun’ Series Premiere Recap

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    Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney reunite to break down the two-episode premiere of FX’s new series Shogun. They open by unpacking the premise of the historical epic, its early adaptation choices, and its ties to the James Clavell novel of the same name. Next, they discuss the introduction of the show’s trio of main characters (John Blackthorne, Yoshii Toranaga, and Toda Mariko), their respective positions in the story so far, and the ensuing power struggle among the Council of Regents. Later, they close by highlighting their favorite production aspects, including the intricate set design and the immaculate costuming.

    Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney
    Producer: Kai Grady

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Joanna Robinson

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  • Your EDM Premiere: Billain Offers a Different Perspective With ‘Different Eyes’ [Vision] | Your EDM

    Your EDM Premiere: Billain Offers a Different Perspective With ‘Different Eyes’ [Vision] | Your EDM

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    By now, everyone in both the D&B and bass worlds knows that when Billain is about to drop a new release, it’s going to be a game-changer. Now with his last releases being in February, the scene is more than ready for a new joint from the Bosnia-based mega-producer. Or so they think. Different Eyes, the upcoming EP due out this Friday, November 17 on Vision, is once again going to lock Billain into the pinnacle of creativity in bass music.

    Having already teased the title track two weeks ago, fans might assume Different Eyes will be another atmospheric concept EP, similar to 2022’s Lands Unbreached or 2019’s Nomad’s Revenge. Being that Billain has been so focused on film production with his multi-award winning short Fugitive and scoring said film as well as new A/V projects, it wouldn’t be too farfetched of an assumption. It would, however, be wrong. The fast, aggressive, yet painfully emotive D&B styles that caused both industry and fans to become infatuated with the dizzying levels of production this artist can attain is on Different Eyes in full force.

    While almost every track on this EP can easily unalive any dancefloor, it’s important to note that Different Eyes is still a concept album and a journey, and it should be listened to as such at least once. It starts with the atmospheric, largely beatless wonder of an intro track, “It’s First Dream.” This lullaby brings the listener back into a world that only Billain fully knows: one of heavy atmos, cyberpunk dreamscapes and endless lands made of sound and code. It’s actually kind of him to lull the listener into this state, because the next tracks hit so damned hard, we nee a buffer.

    What follows in the next five tracks is a sequence of ever faster and crunchier bass hurricanes, reflecting chaos and anger and tightly-reigned skill all at once. Our YEDM premiere is the second track, “Baka,” which presumably taken from the anime slang for “crazy” or “foolish,” and it certainly has the wild chaos of an anime fight scene. Easily the heaviest and most chaotic track on the EP, “Baka” drops the listener into the narrative of Different Eyes like a 3-meter vert ramp and doesn’t let go until it’s damn well ready. As intense and chaotic as it sounds, “Baka” was likely the most tightly produced track on the album, simply by virtue of how chaotic it is. It’s always the maddest syncopation that takes the most programming, and it might also be a little nod to jazz fusion. Only the best DJs will be able to mix this track, and it’s likely that’s the way Billain wanted it.

    Going through the journey of the rest of the EP with “Kinetic,” “Uncanny Valley,” “FUCK Y00” and “Void Me,” the intensity and speed of the work only increases, but unlike “Baka,” they all have a trackable drum & bass beat. The EP ends up feeling like exploring a wild new planet in some futuristic inner space hellscape, from the prep of “Different Eyes” to the bumpy, aggressive culture shock of “Baka” to finding one’s stride in the “Uncanny Valley” to being over it already with “FUCK Y00” to the last ride of the ego-destroying ride of “Void Me.” “Different Eyes” is the victory lap, a reward for beating the game and making it through this fever dream of an EP.

    As a psycho-thriller in sonic form, Different Eyes is a reflection of doing hard inner work. It’s chaos and anger and confusion and a hurricane of emotions, but the title track is the goal: meant to be the new perspective once one has let all that beautiful pain go. Whether you are working on something personally or just unthinkingly follow the arc of this EP, you will come to the end of this masterpiece seeing the world with “Different Eyes.”

    Different Eyes drops tomorrow, November 17 on Vision. Click here to pre-order or pre-save.

    –

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    Layla Marino

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  • 16 Unforgettable Minimalist Red Carpet Looks

    16 Unforgettable Minimalist Red Carpet Looks

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    In 2018, Big Little Lies actress Zoë Kravitz arrived at the 75th Golden Globes Awards wearing a simple custom velvet Saint Laurent dress, black open-toe Christian Louboutin heels, and oversized emerald earrings. Many actresses wore green jewels to the awards show that year as a symbol of growth, renewal, and hope.

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