This week:
- We’re GLOW fans now.
- What the hell is BH90210?
- The week’s best trailer.
- The week’s worst trailer.
- A Princess Diana musical???
- A cursed image. (Sorry.)
Alison Brie makes a facial expression in episode nine of the current season of GLOW that quite possibly destroyed my heart. Completely. I think it no longer exists???
I mention this because it speaks to how much this show, which I never really liked as much as all of my critic colleagues seemed to, has grown. For me, despite its stroke-of-genius premise—a look at the formation of a cult all-female wrestling TV show in the 1980s—the first two seasons of the Netflix series kind of ran on a narrative hamster wheel going nowhere, with a repetitive Cinderella storyline.
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But with season three, which launched last week, the show moved its action to Las Vegas and established the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling as a success. That’s allowed the series to move on from teaming up against insurmountable odds and instead focus more deeply on the characters, stealthily becoming one of the most poignant and emotional series I’ve seen this year. And if it doesn’t get renewed, I swear to God…
The final scene of the season perfectly encapsulates what made this run of episodes so strong: a two-hander between Brie and Betty Gilpin with emotional stakes teetering off the Richter scale. Neither character behaves in ways that would be narratively easy or even, for fans, that satisfying.
It’s the kind of cliffhanger that the age of streaming was made for executing, yet still rarely does. Not a “who shot J.R.?” or “I take thee, Rachel” moment that haunts fans for an entire summer while they wait for a new season, but a “how will this subtle, yet seismic shift in this character dynamic impact the futures of these protagonists we love?”
I’m legitimately nervous that we may never learn the answer.
An otherwise innocuous anecdote in an old Wall Street Journal story about how Netflix makes its data-driven programming decisions is the closest thing we have to a hint about GLOW’s audience size, considering the streaming service guards its viewership numbers like they’re the nuclear codes. According to the article, the show was incredibly close to being canceled after its first season because of “lackluster viewership,” but was saved by executives championing its strong reviews and a desire to stay in business with executive producer Jenji Kohan, who created Orange Is the New Black.
I have no information one way or another about how Netflix feels about renewing GLOW for season four. All I’m saying is I need more of it in my life. More of these characters who are finally being explored so thoughtfully that I cried four separate times in the finale. More of the shrewd gender politics the series so cleverly weaves into the plots. More of Betty Gilpin doing Emmy-worthy work.
This is a show that staged Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as a wrestling match, cast Geena Davis as a former Vegas showgirl, and tricked me into thinking that Marc Maron is a babe. We stan.
I’m late to the game, but I finally watched the new Beverly Hills 90210 premiere, called BH90210 this go-round, and, afterwards, immediately felt the need to schedule a lobotomy and perhaps also maybe loved it?
The first thing that must be said is that this show is absolutely deranged. Did you know that this is neither a revival, a reboot, nor a continuation of the original series? I ask because I very much did not, and I can say from experience that you absolutely should know this before tuning in.
Instead, the series stars the original 90210 cast as themselves—but with actors playing their fictional families and spouses—contemplating the idea of shooting an actual revival. Scholars centuries from now will parse the levels of meta in this show.
The whole thing is so jarring and cheeseball that I spent the first 20 minutes hissing at my television about this wasted opportunity to reunite a beloved cast, only to somehow find myself deeply invested and enjoying it—a miracle Jesus himself is said to be flummoxed by.
Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth have amazing chemistry and underrated comedic timing. Spelling, especially, is a standout in this. At one point she is drunkenly sauntering down the aisle of a private plane while wearing Donna’s iconic prom dress and I finally understood what it felt like to have television content that is catered directly to me.
I have no idea if the rest of this revival—well, not revival... what the hell do you call this series?—will be good. In fact, I am nearly certain it will not be. Will I be watching anyway? Yes. Catch me at the Peach Pit.
This week finally brought the trailer for The Morning Show, the Apple TV Plus series starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell. The trailer sparked countless headlines about the “first look” at Aniston’s big return to television, neglecting one tiny detail: you do not see Aniston, nor a single human, in the trailer. (Watch it here.)
Instead, the disembodied voices of the main stars talk about journalism while a camera pans through an empty set. The ghosts of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom are apparently now haunting the halls of a soundstage leased by Apple. There is no real information given about this series, when it will come out, or what the hell Apple TV Plus even is.
Maybe it’s all being kept under wraps because the platform is going to be so game-changing and good that the element of surprise is being used for dramatic effect to further blow us away. Or maybe we’re all going to wake up one morning in November with a TV series starring U2 automatically loaded onto our phones. At this point, who can say?
While Apple was busy giving us that fart noise of a trailer with The Morning Show, Greta Gerwig was getting ready to, as she does, monumentally alter our emotional constitution and understanding of our true selves, and reconfigure the direction of cinema—nay, our lives—completely. Yes, even with whatever that American accent is that Emma Watson does in her three seconds of speaking time, the trailer for Little Women is that good. (Watch it here.)
I was shocked to learn this week that a) there was a musical made about the life of Princess Diana, b) it wasn’t a 30 Rock joke, and c) it is transferring to Broadway. Certainly, this cannot be good, I thought. Well…
Have a good weekend!
What to watch this week:
Why Women Kill: Fills the Desperate Housewives-sized hole in my life.
The Righteous Gemstones: Danny McBride taking on televangelists is as inspired as that sounds.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette?: We love Cate Blanchett and a whimsical movie title.
Blinded By the Light: Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!
What to skip this week:
47 Meters Down: Uncaged: Nope!
Angry Birds 2: Still probably the best sequel to a movie based on a smartphone game you’ll see this summer.
