Serotonin Straight to My Soul
Bake Off is back! Plus: Will & Harper, SNL, and Agatha All Along
Welcome back, friends!
I spent last weekend culturiste-ing at the Houston Ballet. My dear friend and college roommate Laura married an actual composer who composed an actual symphony for an actual ballet that his best friend actually choreographed.
How is this our life, Laura!?! Those two freshman girls skipping down the trails of Lookout Mountain talking about boys and poetry could never have dreamed, my dear!
My parents drove down the four hours from Longview to see it, too. It’s one of the first big outings like this that my mom could do since her stem cell transplant, and she looked radiantly beautiful and alive and that’s not something I take for granted anymore. 🥹
It was an amazing weekend, from which I returned to plunge back into my full-time job covering another variation on men in tights delivering physically astonishing formations: the NFL. Human beings, we contain multitudes!!
So, it’s your turn, dear reader: What is something that high school/college you would never BELIEVE you have done as an adult?
In the News
👶🏼 Vote for my friend Cole’s baby! My friend and fellow Substacker, Cole Rush, entered his adorable daughter Faye into the Good Housekeeping Baby of the Year Contest as part of a campaign to support Baby2Baby! You can vote for her and support the organization here. :)
🐻 Fat Bear Week starts Wednesday! In what has become a beloved annual tradition hosted by the Katmai National Park in Alaska, the public casts votes for the “bear you believe best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.” Cannot wait.
👰🏻♀️ Lana Del Rey married an actual alligator swamp tour guide from South Louisiana!?!1 Y’all. I thought she was dating him as, like, a joke?? This might be the swampiest thing I’ve EVER heard and I was born on the bayou with a Pawpaw [pronounced “puhPAW”] who shot squirrels from the porch of his trailer! My blood is THICK with swamp. But she basically married that mosquito from The Princess and the Frog! If you go any further south, you are holding your wedding in the sediment at the bottom of the Mississippi River Delta! It feels like Lana got lost in a section of the bookstore labeled “Bayou Bodice Rippers” and decided she wanted that life. If they ever get divorced, I hope he gets that good “alli-money,” as my friend Nat put it!
👵🏻 We said goodbye to Dame Maggie Smith. So many lovely tribute videos to her all over the internet this week. She was so brilliant, so wonderful, so truly singular. She will be missed.
🗽 NYC Mayor Eric Adams was indicted for taking bribes from the Turkish government. You know you have not arranged your life well when the first thing people think of when they hear you were indicted is a photo of you handing Sean “Diddy” Combs the key to the city. Which leads me to…
⛔️ I’m not going to get into Sean Combs’ horrific legal cases, but the long and short of it is that this is likely another watershed moment where a whoooole lot of famous people are going to be subpoenaed, implicated in, and involved as perpetrators or victims or both. It’s awful.
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how our institutions [and therefore in many ways, our OWN money and attention] have enabled violence against women: the latest allegations against Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson who is accused of assault by many women but is still being paid by the NFL; the docuseries about the WWE cofounder Vince McMahon who is accused of sex trafficking; the sexual assault case that is taking over France [don’t click unless you’re ready for a horror movie]; and of course, the Diddy disaster. I know I’m not “protecting the vibe” of this Substack right now, but I want to say that everyone fighting against this in any way — whether it’s in courtrooms or friend groups or parenting or your own relationships — what you’re doing is so important. 💜
OK, now for whiplash into … The show that heals me from this toxic world!
Two TV Staples Returning for the Fall
It’s fall, and that means some of our favorite recurring shows have returned!
1. The Great British Baking Show
I defy anyone to find anything on any screen that delivers a quicker jolt of autumnal serotonin than The Great British Baking Show. [Known as The Great British Bake Off in the UK.]
The new season is filled with lovely, humble, funny, kind, gentle people with silly little accents — and one guy from the Bronx [also with an outlandish accent of course]. I can’t tell you how quickly I went from “Ew, why did they let an American on this show!?” to chanting “USA! USA! USA!” on my couch while pounding pumpkin chili. [But also, did he fake that illness because his Signature was garbage.]
The snobbishness and cynicism drain from my body the second I see that climate-uncontrolled tent.
All the usual suspects are here:
The young one who seems like she should be in school right now this very second; the pretty guy who seems like he must spend 100% of his non-baking time in the gym; the “regular (hot) mom”; the non-white lady who you know is going to actually use flavor; the gay gardener; the gay artist who works in a government office; the gay pirate; the blue-collar middle-aged British bro; the non-British person; the grandmother; and the kindest most lovable-seeming woman you have ever met.
Let’s hear your takeaways!
2. Saturday Night Live: The 50th season!
[Some of you feel really old right now, don’t you.]
This Saturday was the premiere of SNL’s 50th season — and Maya Rudolph’s glorious return as Kamala Harris!! It was an up-and-down episode, as they all are, but I was grinning like a fool and just happy to be here. I’ll watch SNL until it’s dead underground!
A few highlights:
The politician-casting: Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff, Bowen Yang as J.D. Vance, and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden. LOL!
“The lyrics are vague, but the vibe slaps.” A spot-on description of the Harris/Walz campaign as Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”
“Textbook Writer” was my favorite sketch.
The new opening credits. In THIS house, we never skip the opening credits!
Bowen Yang as Moo Deng in a not-veiled reference to Chappel Roan. Bullseye of my algorithm.
Jelly Roll is suddenly everywhere? Three weeks ago I didn’t know who he was, then I saw the chimp lady listening to him in her car, and then suddenly he’s EVERYWHERE!? Also, his wife’s name is Bunnie XO. America is a wild land!
And Three NEW Things I Watched
1. Will & Harper
This show takes on something that has been wielded as a political lightning rod and turns it into a conversation and a relationship between friends who love each other.
In the description: “When Will Ferrell finds out his close friend of 30 years is coming out as a trans woman, the two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship and transition.”
It’s really special at its best — the times when they just let Will and Harper be real. When they’re both being honest about their fears and questions, especially when Harper lets us into her experience of the world. She doesn’t owe us that and it feels very sacred. It’s about compassionate understanding and love and what it is to be human.
They are quite honest at times about entering uncharted waters in their friendship and the world: “So many of us don’t know what the rules of engagement are,” Harper says. Watching two friends engage in it together is meaningful.
Where it doesn’t work as well for me is where it veers outside of their story and tries to comment on America as a whole, teetering on the superior tone of that “Imagine” video: Look at these poor, wretched ignorants. It’s not that those parts are neccessarily less true [Harper has reason to be afraid out in the world], but more that those parts lose touch with who Harper and Will are, and the documentary doesn’t have time to address it well. Still, the good parts will linger for me.
2. His Three Daughters
Are you the sort of person who relishes a strong acting performance, the kind with no bells and whistles, barely any setting, simply a space to let the great actors do their thing? The kind that leaves you thoughtful and also like, “Oh, THIS is what my high school drama teacher was trying to teach us when all I wanted to do was flirt with Christian Connors”? In other words, do you love a good play?
That’s what this movie is. It’s very slow and requires a lot of patience. It’s not AMAZING, and I almost quit several times. It’s just … thoughtful. Real. Sad. It’s largely set in a small apartment where three estranged sisters come together for the final days of their father’s life. It’s not a fun time, but it’s moving — a slow-cooker of emotional revelations.
Oh and it stars the master-class acting trifecta of Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne. It’s not for everyone, but for people who like this kind of thing, I think it will deliver.
3. Agatha All Along
I thought nothing could get me excited about the Marvel Cinematic Universe again, but the witch ladies did it! Agatha is such fun!
It’s technically a sequel, or spinoff, to WandaVision, which is also very worth the watch. If you didn’t see Wanda, I searched “WandaVision Recap for Agatha All Along,” and this one from Collider does the trick. Beware, though, it will spoil WandaVision and also that unwatchable Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Kathryn Hahn is a delight. She’s doing so much on so many levels. It’s precocious and playful and perfect for the fall season. The cast brings along some real witchy broads, too, including Aubrey Plaza, Patti LuPone, and Sasheer Zamata.
That’s all for this week, thanks SO MUCH for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and recommendations in the comments. Next up: Everything on my watch list for October! (Some would say it is TOO MUCH.)
[I generally avoid commenting here about celebrity marriage/divorce/baby news unless it directly has to do with their work, partially because I’d hate to think I’m profiting off people’s private lives but even more so because of the massively self-deluded belief that I will one day became famous and when I am I want everyone to stay out of my g—d—n business. BUT. The Louisiana of this all is just too much!!]
Two variations on men in tights! 😂😂
Wow, you had me on an emotional roller coaster with this one!!! So much laughing! So much nearly-in-tears! Good gravy, this is the sauce!!! 😍😍😍😍
Thrilled to be here, as always! I apologize in advance for typos, I have press on nails that are maybe too long for me.
1. Last week while we sat near the 18th green, watching the last group at the LPGA Queen City Championship, I looked at Matt and said: "I'm having a fun day with you and Jane. But, if you had asked me 11 years ago, when we got married, what our family would be doing for fun on a Sunday....this would definitely not have been on the list!". It's so strange how life takes you to places you couldn't imagine.
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