Give Us the Taylor Swift Courtroom Album!
The Swift Subpoena, Bill Belichick's girlfriend, and THAT 'The Last of Us' episode
In this newsletter: The Taylor Swift-Blake Lively legal drama, my hot take on Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson, an American pope, Kendrick Lamar, and, at the very end, with spoilers but I will warn you first: That “Last of Us” episode !!! 👀
We’re back after a month-long hiatus! Since we last gathered here, the wheel of pop culture has been spinning apace!
We got tariffed so badly that American Girl brought back Kit, the Depression-era doll.
Beyoncé started her tour and brought her daughters [That’s America’s Royal Family!].
Prince Harry updated us that his father is still not speaking to him [causing me to worry about the trajectory of America’s aforementioned Royal Family].
Bill Belichick’s legacy went up in smoke after he went on CBS with his girlfriend who unfortunately bears a striking resemblance to Hot Ursula [sports’ Royal Family!].
The Met Gala was better dressed than ever before, but left me wondering why all that money they raised — $31 MILLION !! — can’t go to, like, solving homelessness or saving “Sesame Street”!???
A horse called Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby over Journalism, which is an End Times indicator for certain.
We got an American Pope, which is also an End Times indicator and stunningly not an HBO miniseries!
In my work world (and why I’ve been on Substack hiatus): March Madness wrapped; the NFL Draft came and went and I went on a podcast about it; I was invited onto ABC(!) and CNN(!) to talk about the Kentucky Derby, and I wrote about the people who craft its fashion and the best signature cocktails at sporting events; then at the Derby I met Simone Biles(!!) and Boston Rob(!!)! Smiling through it all, etc. etc.
So, without further ado, let’s get back into the pop culture soup and break down a few of the biggest pop culture stories that are using up my brain space this week!
And, from you, dear reader, I would love to know: What’s the biggest story I missed?
Not news, but…. I went to see Kendrick Lamar and SZA at MetLife!
The concert was *incredible* — the way they intertwined their aesthetics and personas, with his masculine, militaristic, bombastic, jabbing cityscapes blending with her primal, undulating, visceral, female, metamorphosing wilderness. WOW! I ran out of adjectives!
But most of all, it was the JOY. It was the coldest, rainiest night in New Jersey, just absolutely miserable weather, and we were in a windy outdoor stadium, and yet everyone was screaming and swaying and singing and stomping with joy.
OK, really onto the news now….
There is ONE Person Responsible for Tarnishing Bill Belichick’s Legacy
And his name is not Jordon Hudson!
I have been tracking this relationship with a fervor rivaling Mrs. Rachel Lynde ever since it became public last year. Sorry to the sports boys, but this is the only time I’ve ever been remotely interested in Bill Belichick as a person. Winning eight Super Bowls or whatever is nothing to me when you dress that ugly.
Let’s set the stage: A 73-year-old formerly powerful but at-that-time-unemployed man who has always derided social media starts dating a 24-year-old fisherman activist/beauty queen/former cheerleader/philosophy student and suddenly she has a real estate portfolio worth $8 million, is named on all his business documents, is copied on all the emails at his new job, and has him acting like an absolute FOOL on Instagram!??
Then, that embarrassing CBS interview goes viral and snaps the big donors to attention. Within days, the PR machine rolls out, Jordon is silenced [a.k.a. has not posted in over a week after writing “Full statement 𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑺𝑶𝑶𝑵…” on her Instagram! Unless she meant “soon” the way Jesus did about his Second Coming?], and Bill releases a Tree Paine-level public statement telling everyone to get out of his business.
Then, this weekend, Hudson competed in the Miss Maine beauty pageant and got third. Belichick was there in the front row supporting her.
My takeaways from all this are:
Hudson’s ambitions: So huge and so mediocre all at once! Her endgame appears to be either Reality TV or First Lady, which in a past life I would’ve said, “Pick a lane,” but in Trump’s America, I guess she can have them simultaneously! Touché, JordOn!1
Rent free in my mind: Picturing every major news outlet — including THE NEW YORK TIMES — crowding into a *Holiday Inn* in Portland, Maine, to see the Miss Maine Beauty Pageant. If this isn’t a Parks & Rec episode, I don’t know what is!
No matter what the misinformed podcast bros try to tell you, NOBODY is responsible for “tarnishing Bill Belichick’s legacy” other than Bill Belichick himself. Whatever we think of Ms. Hudson, HE is an adult who decided to enter into this “personal and professional relationship” all by his bad self. PERIOD.
Anyways, speaking of Tree Paine….
Taylor Swift Got Subpoenaed and Blake Lively is Posting Through It
“Dragon down!” as one commenter put it on the Chicago pope’s internet! Thanks to Blake “Khaleesi”2 Lively mentioning Taylor as one of her “dragons” in the case against Justin Baldoni [which I explained before here and here], Taylor got subpoenaed.
Please, Lord, give us the Taylor Swift Courtroom Album! Tracklist ideas:
Is this anything??
OK, back to the facts of the case: Taylor’s publicist, Tree Paine, who famously works harder than my waterproof eyeliner when I’m watching graduation videos on TikTok, said, and this is an indirect quote: “Over my dead body!”
Meanwhile, on the very day this news came out, Blake Lively was blithely [which should be her nickname] posting memes from her [allegedly terrible] sequel movie, “Another Simple Favor.” But what else can she do, honestly? Jordon Hudson took the “Full statement 𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑺𝑶𝑶𝑵…” move and look where that got her.
Listen, Taylor is not one to shy away from a just cause or a court case or a lawsuit. She appeared on a witness stand and won a case against a DJ who had groped her. He had sued her for defamation, and she countersued for a symbolic $1. Good for her! The fact that she’s being subpoenaed now really does just seem to be an attention grab by Baldoni’s team, without much merit. But we’ll see where it goes.
Conspiracy theory: Is this the exact event that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” needed…!? Fans have been drooling for years now for Taylor to finally release her re-record of “Reputation,” which is famously her “F**k it, I’m going full Bad Girl/Vengeance on my enemies” album. 👀 If you’ve seen people talking about “Reputation TV” on the internet, that’s what they’re talking about.
Your thoughts on my Galaxy Brain Theory: Could this subpoena moment launch “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)”!?? I’ll take your answers in the comments.
It’s Not What They Did, It’s HOW They Did It!!
***SPOILERS*** for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2
…Maybe it’s also what they did. And what they did was gruesomely murder the show’s main character, played by internet darling and publicity money-maker Pedro Pascal.
There are all the obvious arguments against this happening at all:
The relationship between Joel and Ellie was the engine of this show. It’s what made it magic.
They could’ve kept their star in it for more of the season; Episode 2 is so early!
Was it NECESSARY!?!?
The first bullet point is the one I find most convincing — it’s hard to create something with that much spark. But I actually think killing your main character can be a ballsy and deeply effective storytelling move when done well, raising the stakes and broadening the story. Think of how much smaller the “Game of Thrones” world would’ve been if Ned Stark had stayed the main character!
What bothered me more was how they did it:
It felt like a cop-out? Like, oh, we can’t work through this rift between Joel and Ellie, let’s just fix it by killing him off.
I didn’t find the storyline convincing or compelling. We’re just supposed to kind of buy into this Abby person’s vendetta. But, no matter how brilliant an actor Kaitlyn Dever is, the plotline just didn’t feel earned.
Weirdly, I felt like they pulled their punches at the end. Maybe I’m “Game of Thrones”-pilled but like, earn our horror! I’ll never get over Pedro Pascal’s death in “Game of Thrones.” EVER!
The pros of this storyline: Vengeance and violence only beget vengeance and violence. That part of Joel’s tale, at least, carried through. Now Ellie is next up in the toxic cycle. Crazy that two of television’s most stunning deaths were both Pedro Pascal. What a sicko! 😍
I’d love to hear your thoughts! I’m still watching the show, and started feeling “back in” on the storytelling in the episode where Jeffrey Wright comes in.
That is not a typo; she styles her name “JordOn” on Instagram. I try not to judge, but she makes it difficult!
Who has clearly never finished Game of Thrones to know what happens to Khaleesi….
Need Hacks thoughts. And Simone anecdotes 😇
“A horse called Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby over Journalism, which is an End Times indicator for certain.” 🤣🤣