Your End Days TV Guide

The world is imploding, but I have White Lotus scoop (without spoilers) and assorted distractions to anesthetize your abject terror

Shello! “How are you” has become such a stupid question, hasn’t it? How are we supposed to start emails now? If you’re American or American-adjacent and you have a drop of blood in your veins, I know my email will not find you well if it finds you at all.

The way I’ve been cosplaying normalcy is by titering my exposure to the barrage of FCKRY with joyous distractions. If you’ve experienced any trauma in your life, you know compartmentalization can be a handy-dandy way to stuff all your WHAT THE FCKS in a sack for a few blessed hours so you can feel like you have a sense of agency over anything. Some achieve this nirvana by drinking heavily. Others might cook or clean. If it weren’t February I’d be outside somewhere doing something but it’s FCKNG February and acting like it in the frigid Northeast, so I write and watch righteous television. Luckily, I have much to report on that front.

White Lotus is Coming! White Lotus is Coming!

The new season of White Lotus is one hell of a wild ride. You’ll find no spoilers here (because I don’t want to be a total asshole) but suffice it to say, Mike White and the incredible assemblage of actors that execute his vision do not disappoint. I was fortunate enough to Zoom into a press conference with Mike and the cast, and can share some bon-mots:

Mike White on shooting in Thailand: “We had to focus on something new. I was thinking it'd be cool to do something about religion, God, and spirituality. Thailand is a Buddhist country but I'm from L.A. and I had my self-help Buddhist years. I'm still having them. There are a lot of Buddhist concepts that I thought would be interesting to explore. There's something about the culture there, too, that [going there] just feels like chaos [when] Westerners come. Something that keeps coming up in the show is people wanting to be their ideal selves, and to be more than the base kind of animal creatures they can be. Then there's this kind of antic force that keeps pulling them back out to monkey land. Thailand does have all the temples and this spiritual dimension, but then it also is known for Bangkok and the wild nights and it feels like it would be a great canvas to explore those themes because people kind of either go there for one or the other or a mixture of both. We wanted to capture what the vibe really is.”

Natasha Rothwell on returning as Belinda and collaborating with Mike White: “It wasn't my intention to be possessed by Tanya McQuoid but I do think that we get to see Belinda outside of her work uniform. She's able to be a guest. When people travel, they often try on versions of themselves they may not otherwise, and I think Belinda is trying to figure out what her vacation persona is. I don't think she's someone who gets to do that often. I'm so grateful to Mike for bringing Belinda back because I do think it is a love letter to Tanya in a way. I wish more directors were like him. He's so open to collaborating and he's very aware he's not a Black woman. Being able to work with him on pages and pitch ideas to help ground the character and make Belinda as authentic as possible is such a dream. He knows I'm a writer as well, so we get to geek out about it. I remember telling Mike a story about when I went to Ireland and I was on some hill with fog and some castle, and there was not a Black person to be seen, and this Black family sort of emerged from the mist. I just walked towards them and we hugged without speaking then we pulled away. I was like, ‘Do you even speak English?’ I learned that she and her husband were taking their kids abroad and letting them learn from the world. I've had that happen so many times. It even happened while we were shooting The White Lotus. It's a very homogenous country, but there was a black guest who was staying at the same hotel that we were shooting at and I walked up to her and gave her a hug. I might have a problem with hugging strangers, but it emphasized the importance of Black travel and seeing Black people in spaces.”

Some other good takeaways: Carrie Coon described the season as “Drunk Ass Chaos,” Parker Posey admitted to watching Southern Charm to hone her Southern accent, Aimee Lou Wood outed herself as a Scorpio Sun and Moon, and Leslie Bibb said Mike White had nailed her Enneagram as an eight.

Once you watch it, let me know your thoughts about the premiere in the comments!

The SNL 50 Concert Extravaganza

Just like your neighborhood wine mom might do on Facebook, Saturday Night Live has been pelting us with 50th birthday content and I, for one, am not mad. The bastion of the counterculture since its premiere in 1975, SNL’s musical performances have always ushered us through the good, the bad, and the ugly. If there’s anything we’re going to need in the ugliest-of-ugly days-that-feel-like-years, it's counterculture. Peacock is now broadcasting their epic 3-hour Radio City Music Hall musical celebration (not to be confused with the documentary, which is also brilliant), and it proved to be a funny, captivating, and expertly produced endeavor.

There were too many highlights to name here but some include Lady Gaga singing “Dick In A Box” with Andy Samberg (which made me love her all the more), Maya Rudolph and Ana Gasteyer singing their ta-tas off (Gasteyer is an unsung SNL MVP if you ask me), St. Vincent and David Byrne jamming with everyone from Arcade Fire to Robyn, Post Malone inspiring Colin Jost to pogo during Post-Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Brandi Carlile bringing us all to our knees with that end-note in “The Joke,” Bonnie Raitt being Bonnie Raitt, and so many more.

It was almost as entertaining to watch the artists in the audience react to the artists onstage.

Pedro Pascal knows how to love Devo

Maya Rudolph as Beyoncé, Fred Armisen as Prince introduce Cher; Sarah Sherman looses her damn mind (as I would)

Cher, ever my patron saint, can never resist a solid FCK U. At 78, she killed every note wearing the same ‘Turn Back Time’ outfit she wore astride a cannon 36 years ago, and she ATE in it. As evidenced above, the whole spectacle put SNL cast member Sarah Sherman very deeply into her feelings, just as it did me.

Shit I Got Done

On the topic of SNL, I had the distinct honor of writing this Friday’s cover story for the wonderful DAME Magazine, in which I gathered some of the most poignantly female SNL sketches into a timeline of vids.

I did my very best to adhere to my thesis (sketches that shape public opinion on women’s issues) and it was quite a challenge to choose among the riches available online so please enjoy and, kindly and respectfully, please don’t @me about the sketches that got away. There are only so many hours in the day, amirite?

I also had the distinct pleasure of making my Vanity Fair debut this week, both in print and online, with a profile piece and Q&A with the delightful actor/writer/producer Rupert Everett.

We chatted about his 50-year career and upcoming book, The American No—a hilarious collection of short stories that sprang from rejected film/TV pitches. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. Having followed his career loosely for 40 years (how’s that for croning aloud?!), I was already familiar with so much of his work, but the intense period of research leading up to our convo and, of course, the convo itself, reminded me why I do the work of promoting the art of other artists. Regardless of what we make, who we are, how we live, or what we do, there’s a thread that connects us all, and the key to conducting a good interview is finding that fiber and unraveling it.

Our actual conversation ended with a mutual serenade of Native New Yorker by Odyssey. If you know, you know.

Stay tuned for an exclusive interview this week! Everyone gets a good peek but paid subscribers get access to the whole damn thing!

ILY

xx

MF