This week:
- Our dream cast for Knives Out 3.
- The Trump verdict made X great again.
- That Hacks finale was an absolute banger.
- Audra McDonald is coming to save us.
- Jerry Seinfeld is back at it.
Thirty-Four More Times the Fun
Finally, a reward.
While many people understandably fled the toxic cesspool that is X because of its new direction under Elon Musk (that direction is “straight to Hell”), there’s a contingent of us who have lingered. Why? Perhaps it’s Stockholm syndrome. Maybe it’s because it’s still where I gather breaking news and trending topics like people’s reaction to TV episodes. It’s also because, frankly, the people who post on there are genuinely funny. The memes, the reaction to the news: When you just want to read a good joke—TikTok videos are a whole other thing—X still beats any of the rushed, inelegant, and, frankly, boring copycats.
The main reason we stayed, though, even if we maybe didn’t consciously know it, was for times like this week.
When Donald Trump’s guilty verdict was read (34 times!), X fleetingly became the playground we once loved again: full of community, gallows humor, and comedy-tinged elation that can’t—or at least hasn’t—been replicated anywhere else.
As one person posted, there was an element of “we deserve this” among the X holdouts: “this is why you don’t leave the cursed website,this is the moment for the ones with real fortitude.” There also was a resounding giddiness that these could be the most fun days on the site since Trump got Covid and people thought he might die. As in, several people on my timeline literally posted: “This is gonna be the best day on here since he almost died of covid.” (Listen, everyone has different taste levels when it comes to dark humor.)
“What’s the opposite of doomscrolling?” another person wrote, relishing how joyous it was for a lot of us to see post after post relishing in the verdict.
In celebration of X, even if oh-so briefly, being made great again, here’s a sampling of the posts:
Give Hannah Einbinder an Emmy
That was a marvel of a season finale of Hacks, a roller coaster of catharsis and dread that, as the series always does, delicately vibrated between emotional and sardonically funny. There were two bangers of a scene between Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder’s Ava that I’ll be screaming about for weeks.
Smart was, of course, phenomenal in them, and will win her third Best Actress Emmy in three seasons because of it. But I was struck by Einbinder’s performance because, in a shift, Ava was the one controlling the tenor of the showdowns with Deborah in reaction mode, versus the usual dynamic. Einbinder escalated from a whimper to a lion’s roar in how Ava dresses down Deborah, and their final face-off unveiled a whole new tenor to their relationship.
Immediately after the finale was made available on Max, a Season 4 was announced. Hell yes.
Here Comes Mama
There was a communal moment Thursday morning as me and all my fellow frociaggines joined the virtual line to buy tickets to the first performance of Audra McDonald’s just-announced production of Gypsy. It’s almost as if Audra knew: “You might be feeling alienated that the Pope is just willy-nilly using gay slurs in meetings, so as a gift to you, I, the greatest musical theater performer of our lifetime, will be performing the greatest musical theater role ever written.”
Anyway, I got tickets. Hours later the Trump verdict was read. Aside from the hit on my credit card bill, a good day!
He’s at It Again
This week, Jerry Seinfeld, a person who has complained about woke culture ruining comedy while on a press tour for his *check notes* Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts, apparently had more to say!
Seinfeld misses “dominant masculinity,” he said on Bari Weiss’ podcast. “I like a real man.” Ah, yes:
I am once again asking why extremely rich people speak. If I had all that money, I would be on a yacht, drinking pina coladas, and eating pigs in a blanket at every meal. What I would not be doing is making movies about Pop-Tarts, and what I simply would never be doing is speaking.
What to watch this week:
Clipped: Ed O’Neill plays scandal-ridden LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling. That casting! (Tues. on Hulu)
In a Violent Nature: You’d never guess by the title, but this movie is quite violent. (Now in theaters)
Below Deck Mediterranean: In which I spend a TV season imagining I’m on a yacht in Europe. (Mon. on Bravo)
What to skip this week:
Ezra: Hoo boy, is this a sappy mess. (Now in theaters)
Eric: Not a great week for four-letter titles that start with “E.” (Now on Netflix)
