This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.
This week:
- What to watch while dissociating.
- A second season that is GOOD.
- Lady Gaga, always flawless.
- Samantha speaks.
- The worst opinion I’ve ever seen.
I’ll Love This Show Five-eva
In my mind, there is no greater line in TV comedy than the button on the Girls5eva theme song.
At the beginning of each episode, the group, a former Y2K pop act, sings, “We’re gonna be famous 5eva, because fourever’s too short.” That alone is clever wordplay. Then comes the kicker. “So what are you waiting…five?”
It’s so dumb. But so brilliant. I cackle at the start of every episode. It might be the perfect piece of comedy writing.
If you watched the first season of Girls5eva, then you’re unimpressed, given the conveyor belt of clever quips that made the show more of a meme than a comedy series. Those kinds of lines are in full force for the new season. “#AlbumMode is a state of mind that began when our album was announced and ends when I’m at the Met Gala in a catheter because my dress is too complicated,” is one of Wickie’s (Reneé Elise Goldsberry) first lines.
But what’s so gratifying about the second season is that, while never losing those whiplash, drive-by, weirdly specific pop-culture jokes, it has the space to dive into the humanity of these characters.
It’s all layered, and the satire is even better. They are talking about motherhood. Divorce. Dating. The music industry. Middle age. Desperation. Feminism. Sexism. Ego. Double standards. And it all feels important, while hilarious.
These are characters who were the first women to wear thongs to the White House, but they’re also rewriting the rules of the industry as they make a comeback in it.
And they get to wear a coat from the Nicole Kidman Undoing Collection while doing it.
I’ll Hold Her Hand
My poor office chair suffered a dramatic tragedy this week. Lady Gaga released a new song.
“Hold My Hand” is cheesy as hell. But it’s so good. It is “Live Laugh Love” interpolated as a classic rock song; Michael’s having an open mic night.
But the thing is, it’s also brilliant. Gaga realized a genre, and perfected it. She’s not flirting with a certain kind of song, she’s perfecting it.
All of this is to say that I bored a hole in my chair by twist-in-my-seat dancing to “Hold My Hand” all week. Now there is footage of her arriving in a helicopter dress to the film’s premiere. Fantastic.
And Just Like That…
There was so much ugliness in the media’s version of whatever back and forth there might have been between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall that led to Cattrall turning down a third Sex and the City movie and also not appearing in the sequel series And Just Like That…
Whatever was said or unsaid between them became distilled to headlines or soundbites.
So it’s really interesting to arrive here. I’ve been fascinated—and very supportive—of everything Parker has said to justify the existence of the new series. And, in doing that, I think I dismissed Cattrall’s point of view as petty.
But reading it as a Q&A that underlines how smart and considerate she is, in this Variety piece, makes you think about everything differently. (Read it here.)
Go to Sleep!!!
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills returns this week. It may be the most scrutinized season, with fans figuring out who is on the right side, whatever the right side is, in terms of Erika Jayne and her scandal.
I have no opinion on any of that. But this should be enough to get her fired:
What to watch this week:
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: I had to type those words, so now you have to see it. (Fri. in theaters)
Candy: Jessica Biel axe murderer in a perm wig. Of course we’re watching! (Mon. on Hulu)
Sheryl: Pay some respect to the Crowe. (Fri. on Showtime)
What to skip this week:
The Circle: Who is forcing you to watch this? (Now on Netflix)
