Photo: YouTube

With Emmys season ending in a matter of hours, we may as well turn our attention to a movie that we’ll continue to hum to the tune of “Nowhere Man.” Nomadland, a devastating drama starring Frances McDormand and directed by Chloé Zhao, has won the People’s Choice Award at the annual Toronto International Film Festival. Please, please keep going because we cannot do this without you. Related

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Tags: That, and its previous top prize win at the Venice Film Festival, have solidified Nomadland’s frontrunner status at the 2021 Oscars, which we promise is still happening despite the coronavirus pandemic. “Thank you, the audience. We can’t do this without you,” Zhao said in a virtual acceptance speech. “Cinema is about sharing. A pensive Frances McDormand. We’re so grateful and we hope we’ll see you all down the road.” Additionally, the People’s Choice Award runner-ups were Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami and Tracey Deer’s Beans, the latter of which suddenly has us nostalgic for a certain Even Stevens character.

I just didn’t really anticipate traveling during this pandemic, but if there’s anyone who can work it out I’m sure Lorne has some kind of invisible helicopter that can get me there.” Anything can be possible for America’s cool and fun aunt. Rudolph previously said that she would love to reprise her Harris impression during the new season of SNL, a decision that, while seemingly obvious, was only confirmed by showrunner Lorne Michaels a few days ago. “That’s spicy,” Rudolph said about Harris’s VP candidacy last month. Photo: Saturday Night Live/YouTube

Quick … somebody meme this moment! Days after securing her first-ever Emmy win for her Big Mouth voice-acting work, Maya Rudolph has taken home yet another Emmy, this time for her recurring Kamala Harris impression on SNL. “I love going to the show any excuse I can get. More From This Series

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Tags: On Saturday, Rudolph won the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category on the final evening of the virtual Creative Emmy Awards, and, in a fantastic power move, she actually beat herself to win: Rudolph was also nominated in the category for her recurring role as a celestial judge on The Good Place.

It’s a moment that reveals how thoughtful and deliberate the show has been in portraying Curtis and Kathy Kone. On top of that, Maya and Anna are having an equally clichéd growing-apart, as their new fascinations with acting and stage-managing bring them into direct conflict. Every little moment of reconnection — Shuji enthusiastically praising Maya; Sam rejoining Gabe and Jafeer to discuss plans for Weasels magazine — feels as resonant as it would have from a tween’s perspective. That allows the episode to roll into the cast party with the table fully set for the events that follow, and execute them with the precision of Anna calling out cues from her binder. Related

PEN15 Goes Deeper in Season 2

Tags: And sure enough, the disaster arrives. That’s impressive when you consider it wasn’t even intended to be the finale; the back half of this season remains in post-COVID limbo, awaiting completion for a 2021 release date. Throw in Gabe’s continued disinclination to kiss an increasingly eager Maya, and you have the makings of a theatrical disaster. Both Anna Konkle and Melora Walters are so lovely in this scene, delicately rendering the moments of sweetness that can emerge amid the prickly battles between teen girls and their moms. Maya, looking ridiculous in her oversize Mad Men getup, blows all her cues, sending Anna’s tech team into shambles. As with the rest of this season, the finale ends on a bleak note. Scored to the Four Seasons’ infectious “December, 1963” (which had unexpectedly re-charted at the time), it’s a moment of pure delight that feels all the sweeter for the darkness that preceded it. The final shot lingers on Anna as she stares at her own arm, willing the surface to be cool the same way Steve does. Sam finally makes a genuine apology to Maya — and acknowledges he wishes he had been in Gabe’s shoes for that onstage kiss — but Maya is too caught up in her feelings about Gabe to acknowledge it. Realizing that her mom showed up for her big night and that her dad couldn’t be bothered is a real scales-from-the-eyes moment for her, one that intensifies after she takes a few swigs from Steve’s flask and hears about his own parents’ split. Gutted by his admission that his mom is “the strongest woman [he] knows,” Anna makes a heartfelt apology to Kathy for the way she’s treated her — and acknowledges that her dad is the one who should really be apologizing. “The Days Are Short” is the epitome of a disastrous TV school play, wildly overwrought and far too mature for a group of seventh-graders to comfortably execute. It starts big with a fun bookend to the season premiere: Anna and Maya once again roll through the doors of Yuki’s minivan and into an extended tracking shot, roaming a suburban pizzeria full of admiring family and friends. But as usual, PEN15 is clear-eyed about acknowledging there’s some bitter with the sweet. It’s perfectly teenage — and perfectly PEN15. Set on a single day — the first of “The Days Are Short”’s run — this supersize 36-minute finale moves fast, integrating nearly the entire ensemble of the show and tying up a number of this season’s plotlines. As for Anna, she’s once again caught up in the war between her parents. That makes “Opening Night” a welcome gear-shift, showcasing a moment of ecstatic accomplishment in the girls’ lives without pretending it obviates everything else they’re going through. Email

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google
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Terms of Service apply. Like the entire episode, it rests on the fulcrum of heartbreak and hope, reality and magic, the family ties of a kid and the romantic aspirations of an adult. Instead, Maya is deflated by the breakup, and Curtis levels Anna with the announcement that Kathy will keep the house, and she’ll have to decide with which of them she wants to live. The greatest accomplishment of “Opening Night” is its ability to take a very predictable plot to an unpredictable place. Kathy also apologizes to Anna, for letting her see more of the divorce’s fallout than she ever should have. It’s a brilliant use of artistic elision, delicately shifting nearly every relationship in the room without an ounce of unnecessary exposition. Yet as the season has unfolded, it’s become clear that Kathy is the one who’s doing her best to care for Anna at her lowest, even if she sometimes goes about it the wrong way. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! The other kids, especially Steve, are impressed — unbelievable as it sounds, the Solara was a cool car at the time — but Anna is crushed. Reeling with horror, Maya blanks on her next line. You don’t need to see the play itself to understand how it changes everything — you feel it. (In a hilarious bit of awkwardness, she picks up a chair to hold between them as he tries to make his move.) Anna convinces Maya to give it one more shot with Gabe, whom she notes was likely just as nervous onstage as Maya was. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. Gabe chokes on the big kiss, clapping his hand over his mouth. The show renders this transition as a surreal “dream ballet,” emphasizing the clockwork interaction between the actors and crew, and between Anna, Maya, Gabe and their families in the audience. Anna feeds Maya her line, and the rest of the play doesn’t just go smoothly — it’s a huge hit. But while this season has managed to work dark humor into every episode, it’s been a little short on the flashes of authentic, childlike joy that provide the yin to PEN15’s brutal-realism yang. But PEN15 is willing to sit with the awkwardness, offering the fresh and genuine perspective that even the worst teen disaster is not the end of the world. Neither are going to win any parenting awards, but Curtis initially comes off as the good guy: the one who “gets” Anna, compared to her high-strung, often tone-deaf mom. To the strains of “One Fine Day” (another ‘60s-turned-‘90s favorite, thanks to the George Clooney-Michelle Pfeiffer romcom of the same name), the girls hop into Curtis’ car for what should be a triumphant ride home. This is the part where most shows would cut away to the cringe-y post-play aftermath. The audience’s discomfort mounts. It sounds corny on paper, but the show embraces the goofiness with such confidence that it becomes oddly moving. The pair cozy up in the backseat of Anna’s dad’s new midlife-crisis convertible, but Gabe can’t bring himself to do anything more intense than awkwardly tongue Maya’s jaw (with a stunt double, of course). He gives Maya a pretty impressive “it’s not you, it’s me” speech by tween standards, but the damage of her first heartbreak is done. PEN15
Opening Night

Season 2

Episode 7

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

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Photo: Erica Parise/Hulu

Adolescence is all about the high highs and low lows, and I admire PEN15’s willingness to confront the latter head-on. Her dad has skipped the play to buy his new car, without informing Anna or her mom first.

We’re fixing it now. #Emmys pic.twitter.com/1QohR19Hcd— Patrick Gomez (@PatrickGomezLA) September 20, 2020

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Tags: As the first snafu of the Emmys going virtual in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jason Bateman was erroneously named as the winner of the Outstanding Guest Actor for a Drama Series category on the final evening of the Creative Arts Emmys. The category, presented by the relentlessly cute Bobby Cannavale and Rose Byrne, simply fell victim to a wrong visual or sound cue: Bateman, for his acting work in HBO’s The Outsider, was announced despite a title card for Ron Cephas Jones being beamed onto the screen. Cephas Jones indeed won the category for NBC’s This Is Us, and the ceremony later confirmed that “an incorrect winner has been announced. Please don’t go away.” (Yes, we can’t believe it, but a banner actually let him down.) Bateman is still nominated for Outstanding Drama Actor at tonight’s official Emmys ceremony, in addition to his show, Ozark, in contention for Outstanding Drama Series. Photo: Getty Images

At least we’ll always have last year’s freeze frame. Oops.

With two episodes to go, how can Ratched save her brother and the hospital? • Dolly mentions Jane Russell by name and the imagery of her outfit and the hay in the barn are clearly meant to recall Howard Hughes’s great The Outlaw from 1943. Surprisingly, and maybe disappointingly, “Got No Strings” doesn’t go for the grotesque, using the puppet show concept as a way to fill in the holes in Mildred Ratched’s back story, revealing the torture and abuse she suffered with her foster brother, Edmund Tolleson. And, one night, the boy took scissors and stabbed the abusive monsters who created him. (Would he really go back to an active crime scene? Back on the lam, the cops have surrounded our version of Bonnie and Clyde. The whole meeting goes very poorly, and the Governor forces Hanover to sign the paperwork to state that Edmund is fit for trial. • Two episodes left and the body count has been rising steadily, with at least one major death per episode — Charles, Harold, Dolly in the last three. Yes, one could argue that part of the charm of the Murphy-verse is that logic isn’t a primary concern, but the problem with this show is that the illogical beats aren’t replaced often enough by campy, fun ones. Unless we’re going to have another flashback, that feels like a waste of talent. Back in Lucia, Briggs is clinging to life. How much do you think will be wrapped up this year and how much is just prep work for a likely season two? Sarah Paulson is great in the next scene, explaining what we just saw in the show to Briggs, but it’s oddly repetitive of what we just learned. Perverts and pedophiles paid to watch the brother and sister, Mildred and Edmund, perform sex acts on each other. Never mind.)

Dr. In one of the campiest “that doesn’t happen” twists of the season, Ratched and Briggs end up at a marionette show in Modesto in what seems like less than 24 hours after Briggs was shot. She’s acting arguably crazier than him and finds a gun that anyone who’s ever seen a TV show or movie knows is going to get her in trouble. Ryan Murphy and his team don’t allow this possibility to linger very long before basically having Briggs recover like nothing ever happened. A brother and sister lost their mommy and daddy and went on a great adventure. Hanover and Nurse Ratched try to sell the Governor on the idea that Hanover’s hypnotherapy treatment of Charlotte Wells should be the lynchpin of his campaign, and not the fracas with Edmund. Ratched
Got No Strings

Season 1

Episode 6

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

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Photo: SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX

An episode of a Ryan Murphy show that introduces puppetry as a concept feels more likely to end with people being tortured with twine than any other show. There’s some truly inane chatter between these two unlikable characters that’s just not campy or fun enough, and then they have sex in a barn like fugitive couples are required to do when they’re on the run. Harold and Dolly are dead and he’s right back where he started, only he has a stronger set of shackles and even a muzzle this time. The host is somewhat disconcerting in an American Horror Story: Freak Show kind of way, saying things like “When you see something sad, cry. Extra Dosage

• Why hire Rosanna Arquette, a great actress, to play the case worker for young Edmund and Mildred, and then give her no lines? She wants to have sex, but he’s more nervous about what happens next. Ratched is nervous, mentioning that she grew up in a house with a puppet theater in the basement. In the time it takes Edmund and Dolly to have sex and choke a chicken, Briggs is back to normal and talking about going to a puppet show. On to the show itself, which is really just a way to tell viewers the Ratched backstory without resorting to a simple flashback. There are only two episodes left, but Ryan Murphy has a habit of using a first season to really be a set-up for the next — he did that with The Politician — instead of a standalone story. The Governor reveals to Briggs that he’s going to withdraw funding for the hospital anyway, and then he fires Briggs. Briggs and Ratched fall in love so quickly that it doesn’t make sense, and then nearly break up when Ratched doesn’t want to go to a puppet show. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! She’s a keeper. Who do you think is next? The pair strip to throw off the scent, and find a deserted house, where she seems almost ready to settle down. Of course, none of that was really in the show. He also discovers that Dolly is more willing to kill a chicken than he first suspected. A woman turned monstrous when her attempt to save her brother cost her the love of her life? Ratched has a mental break, seeing the puppet show as a window to her past. Could this be the creation of the monster that the ads for Ratched have promised? Logic is completely out the window this episode in terms of plotting — Briggs recovers from a gunshot wound in about ten hours — but it’s better than the last chapter simply because it feels like the title character is finally really being explored, three-quarters into the season. • Does it feel to anyone else like we’re still in the prologue of this story? Multiple sets of foster parents beat the children, who were sent from house to house over the years like mere puppets in a broken system. And then they drag Edmund right back to Lucia. Edmund goes out to turn himself in, and then Dolly comes out shooting with the gun she found in the house, which allows the creators of Ratched to essentially recreate the end of Bonnie and Clyde, riddling Nurse Dolly with bullets like she’s Faye Dunaway in the classic Arthur Penn movie. When you see something funny, laugh.” There’s some interesting subtext that’s been woefully unexplored in that Ratched can sometimes seem like a people-pleaser, someone following simple puppet-show cues to make other people happy or to get what she wants. And then they got to a wealthy house, where everything seemed great, but it was the worst of all. “Got No Strings” picks up immediately after the end of “The Dance” with dogs hunting escaped fugitive and mass murderer Edmund Tolleson and his nurse/girlfriend Dolly through the fields. Fun! And so the emotions of the show start to feel inconsistent and amplified. He’s not having any of it. Email

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MaiselPhillip W. Stern, Angela Levin, Simone Almekias-Siegl, Miho Suzuki, Claudia Humburg, Big Little LiesTracy Ewell, Jillian Erickson, Jack Lazzaro, and Susan Reilly Lehane, OzarkCandice Ornstein and Lucky Bromhead, Schitt’s CreekBurton LeBlanc and Alastair Muir, The Handmaid’s TaleAutumn Butler, Caitlin Martini Emery, Debra Schrey, and Emma Burton, The Politician

Outstanding Directing for a Variety SpecialStan Lathan, Dave Chappelle: Sticks & StonesLouis J. MaiselErik Messerschmidt, ASC, MindhunterArmando Salas, ASC, OzarkBen Kutchins, OzarkJeff Cronenweth, ASC, Tales from the LoopAdriano Goldman, ASC, BSC, ABC, The CrownPaul Cameron, ASC, Westworld

Outstanding Contemporary CostumesDebra Hanson and Darci Cheyne, Schitt’s CreekMichelle R Cole and Juliann DeVito, black-ishHeidi Bivens, Danielle Baker, and Katina Danabassis, EuphoriaAllyson B. Robot — “Season_4.0 ARG”Stranger Things — “Scoops Ahoy: Operation Scoop Snoop”Westworld — “Free Will is Not Free Interactive Experience”

Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety SeriesGeoffrey Amoral, Richard McGuinness, William McGuinness, Tim Stasse, and Trevor Brown, Saturday Night LiveNoah Mitz, Michael Berger, Will Gossett, Ryan Tanker, Matt Benson, Scott Chmielewski, Patrick Brazil, America’s Got TalentChristian Hibbard, William Peets, Kille Knobel, and James Norman, Jimmy Kimmel Live!Robert Barnhart, Matt Firestone, Madigan Stehly, Patrick Boozer, and Pete Radice, So You Think You Can DanceOscar Dominguez, Daniel Boland, Craig Housenick, Samuel Barker, Johnny Bradley, The Voice

Outstanding Main Title DesignMason Nicoll, Peter Pak, Giovana Pham, and Cisco Torres, Godfather of HarlemAllie Fisher, Anthony Zazzi, and Brian Oakes, Abstract: The Art of DesignLisa Bolan, Henry DeLeon, Mert Kizilay, Kaya Thomas, Yongsub Song, and Alex Silver, Carnival RowAngus Wall, Hazel Baird, Emanuele Marani, EJ Kang, Peter Murphy, and Erik Righetti, The Morning ShowHeidi Berg, Felix Soletic, Carlo Sa, Yongsub Song, Joe Paniagua, and Rachel Fowler, The PoliticianPaul Mitchell, Olga Midlenko, Maciek Sokalski, Gabe Perez, Benjamin Woodlock, WatchmenPatrick Clair, Einar Yanadarg Delul, Raoul Marks, Lance Slaton, Westworld

Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score)Ludwig Göransson, The MandalorianDanny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, OzarkNicholas Britell, SuccessionLabrinth, EuphoriaMartin Phipps, The Crown

Outstanding Period and/or Character HairstylingMichelle Ceglia, Barry Lee Moe, George Guzman, Michele Arvizo, Maria Elena Pantoja, HollywoodBarry Lee Moe, Timothy Harvey, Sabana Majeed, Liliana Maggio, Lisa Thomas, Greg Bazemore, Jessie Mojica, Charlene Belmond, PoseMaxine Morris, Maria Sandoval, Wendy Southard, Sallie Nicole Ciganovich, Ashleigh Childers, Yesim Osman, Star Trek: PicardCate Hall, Louise Coles, Sarah Nuth, Suzanne David, and Catriona Johnstone, The CrownKimberley Spiteri, Michael S. MaiselKristian Milsted, Jay Pelissier, and Edward McLoughlin, WatchmenHoward Cummings, Jon Carlos, and Julie Ochipinti, Westworld

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy SeriesNena Erb, ACE and Lynarion Hubbard, InsecureSteve Rasch, ACE, Curb Your EnthusiasmTrevor Ambrose, Schitt’s CreekPaul Winestock, CCE, Schitt’s CreekKate Sanford, ACE and Tim Streeto, ACE, The Marvelous Mrs. Horvitz, 62nd Grammy AwardsGlenn Weiss, 73rd Annual Tony AwardsPamela Fryman and Andy Fisher, Live In Front of a Studio Audience: ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Good Times’Hamish Hamilton, Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show Starring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy SeriesEddie Murphy, Saturday Night LiveAdam Driver, Saturday Night LiveLuke Kirby, The Marvelous Mrs. Additionally, Maya Rudolph took home her second Emmy of the week for her guest role as Kamala Harris on SNL, and Cherry Jones bagged her third Emmy for her role on Succession. Lara, CAS, David Boulton, The Marvelous Mrs. Carr III, CAS, Michael Perfitt, Star Trek: PicardMichael Rayle, Mark Paterson, William Files, Craig Henighan, Stranger ThingsGeoffrey Patterson, Keith Rogers, and Benjamin L. The Reverend

Outstanding Unstructured Reality ProgramCheerAmy Schumer Learns to Cook: Lunch Break and Pasta NightKevin Hart: Don’t F**k This UpRuPaul’s Drag Race: UntuckedWe’re Here

Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)Dave Chappelle: Sticks & StonesDave Chappelle: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American HumorHannah Gadsby: DouglasJerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to KillJohn Mulaney & The Sack Lunch BunchTiffany Haddish: Black Mitzvah

Outstanding Casting for a Limited Series, Movie, or SpecialVictoria Thomas, CSA and Meagan Lewis, CSA, Watchmen Carmen Cuba and Robin D. Other notable firsts include Eddie Murphy, who won his first-ever Emmy for hosting Saturday Night Live. This made them the first-ever father-daughter Emmy winners in television history. David Mullen, ASC, The Marvelous Mrs. Devlin, CAS, Todd M. Cook, Westworld

Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Limited Series or MovieRyan Watson, The MandalorianCharlie Brewer and Austin Brewer, S.W.A.T.Hiro Koda, Stranger ThingsCort L. Check out the full list of winners from night five below. Maisel

Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Period or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More)Martin Childs, Mark Raggett, and Alison Harvey, The CrownMatthew Flood Ferguson, Mark Robert Taylor, and Melissa Licht, HollywoodBill Groom, Neil Prince, and Ellen Christiansen, The Marvelous Mrs. Fanger, Kristine Haag, and Lori DeLapp, Grace and FrankieSam Perry, Katie Broome, and Justin Selway, Killing EveLou Eyrich, Claire Parkinson, Lily Parkinson, and Nora Pedersen, The PoliticianJustine Seymour, Simone Kreska, and Barbara Schramm, Unorthodox

Outstanding Contemporary Makeup (Non-prosthetic)Doniella Davy, Kirsten Sage Coleman, and Tara Lang Shah, EuphoriaMichelle Radow, Erin Rosenmann, Karen Rentrop, Molly R. Cook, CSA, Mrs. Hessler III, The BlacklistDavid Rowden Sr., The Rookie

Outstanding Writing for a Variety SpecialDave Chappelle, Dave Chappelle: Sticks & StonesHannah Gadsby, Hannah Gadsby: DouglasJohn Mulaney and Marika Sawyer, John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch BunchPatton Oswalt, Patton Oswalt: I Love EverythingSeth Meyers, Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby

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Tags: Photo: WireImage

This year’s Creative Arts Emmys wrapped up on Saturday night, though not without incident. In a moment reminiscent of the 2017 Oscars, the voiceover during the award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama mistakenly announced Jason Bateman from The Outsider as the winner. Grace, CAS, Edward C. Ward, and Tijen Osman, The Marvelous Mrs. Outstanding Animated ProgramRick and MortyBig MouthBob’s BurgersBoJack HorsemanThe Simpsons

Outstanding Children’s ProgramJim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TIE)We Are The Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest (TIE)Star Wars Resistance

Outstanding CommercialBack-to-School Essentials — Sandy Hook PromiseBefore Alexa — AmazonBounce — Apple AirPodsGroundhog Day — Jeep (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles)The Look — P&G

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction SeriesThe Last DanceAmerican MastersHillaryMcMillion$Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness

Exceptional Merit in Documentary FilmmakingThe CaveChasing the Moon (American Experience)Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three MovementsOne Child Nation

Outstanding Television MovieBad EducationAmerican SonDolly Parton’s Heartstrings: These Old BonesEl Camino: A Breaking Bad MovieUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. MaiselYana Gorskaya, ACE and Dane McMaster, What We Do in the Shadows

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited Series, Movie or SpecialWatchmenAmerican Horror Story: 1984Catherine the GreatDevsEl Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)Mathew Price, CAS, Ron Bochar, CAS, George A. MaiselDev Patel, Modern LoveBrad Pitt, Saturday Night LiveFred Willard, Modern Family

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy SeriesMaya Rudolph, Saturday Night LiveAngela Bassett, A Black Lady Sketch ShowBette Midler, The PoliticianMaya Rudolph, The Good PlaceWanda Sykes, The Marvelous Mrs. MaiselPhoebe Waller-Bridge, Saturday Night Live

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama SeriesRon Cephas Jones, This Is UsJason Bateman, The OutsiderJames Cromwell, SuccessionGiancarlo Esposito, The MandalorianAndrew Scott, Black MirrorMartin Short, The Morning Show

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama SeriesCherry Jones, SuccessionAlexis Bledel, The Handmaid’s TaleLaverne Cox, Orange is the New BlackPhylicia Rashad, This Is UsCicely Tyson, How to Get Away with MurderHarriet Walter, Succession

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program RuPaul, RuPaul’s Drag RaceKaramo Brown, Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Bobby Berk, and Jonathan Van Ness, Queer EyeNicole Byer, Nailed It!Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Kevin O’Leary, and Robert Herjavec, Shark TankPadma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio, Top ChefAmy Poehler & Nick Offerman, Making It

Outstanding Interactive Extension of a Linear ProgramMr. The actual winner in that category, Ron Cephas Jones from This Is Us, earned a trophy alongside his daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones, who won for her role in #FreeRayshawn. Palmer, CAS, Larry Benjamin, CAS, and Kevin Valentine, Better Call SaulFelipe “Flip” Borrero, CAS, Larry Benjamin, CAS, Kevin Valentine, Phil McGowan, CAS, OzarkPeter J. AmericaLouise Kiely, Normal PeopleLaura Rosenthal, CSA, Jodi Angstreich, CSA, Kate Caldwell, CSA, and Melissa Kostenbauder, CSA, UnbelievableEsther Kling, Vicki Thomson, Maria Rölcke, and Cornelia Mareth, Unorthodox

Outstanding Choreography for Variety or Reality ProgrammingAl Blackstone, So You Think You Can DanceParris Goebel, Savage X Fenty ShowTravis Wall, So You Think You Can DanceJemel McWilliams, The OscarsJefferson Benjumea and Adrianita Avila, World of Dance

Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour)M.

"I am calling you both to HELP STOP THIS. Related

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Tags: I am calling you both to help stop this. Photo: WireImage

If Selena Gomez taking Mark Zuckerberg to task was on your 2020 bingo card, you’re in luck. Gomez posted a screenshot of the message on her Instagram Story, tagging both Zuckerberg and Sandberg. Please shut down groups and users focused on spreading hate speech violence and misinformation." pic.twitter.com/bHvh0PjMFh— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) September 19, 2020

Gomez, who has 193 million followers on Instagram and 61 million on Facebook, posted the message as part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, which aims to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on social media ahead of the 2020 election. Gomez asked Zuckerberg to curb the spread of misinformation on Facebook and Instagram in a private message to him as well as to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. Our future depends on it.”

Breaking: @selenagomez posted below DM to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg + Sheryl Sandberg to stop spread of misinformation, racism, hate speech. We cannot afford to have misinformation about voting,” Gomez concluded. Please shut down groups and users focused on spreading hate speech, violence, and misinformation. “It’s been a while since we sat down,” Gomez’s message reads. Facebook and Instagram are being used to spread hate, misinformation, racism, and bigotry. “There has to be fact-checking and accountability. Kim Kardashian, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Ruffalo, Dwyane Wade, and Katy Perry also participated in the campaign by blacking out their social media for one day on September 22. Hope to hear back from you ASAP.” Facebook has not yet responded to Gomez’s message. “This is an election year. “We have a serious problem.

Anna pulling rank on Maya with the universe’s largest key ring was the perfect dollop of surrealism on top. With Maura now in the rearview, she still doesn’t have any non-Maya friends. Her parents are at each other’s throats over control of the house, which is hanging in the balance of a court case. Her romantic prospects aren’t great, either: Alex is still ignoring her and Brendan and Marissa are still together. But the arrival of a wise-beyond-his-years theater tech with a seeming interest in Anna’s personal growth changes everything. It might be one of PEN15’s more subtle heartbreak endings, but it’s just as palpable as the others. The added alone time for Anna isn’t great. With a deep reserve of calm and a seemingly endless supply of Bruce Lee quotes, he’s almost a “magical Asian man” trope, albeit one with a deep interest in James Wong’s oeuvre. We know all the things they like to consume, from clothing to toys to TV shows. But aside from Anna’s love of choir, the show has always been a little vague on the girls’ goals, perhaps in the service of keeping them more broadly relatable. When Gabe thinks he has a cold, she shows up at his house with a pair of face masks, through which they awkwardly slow-dance and eventually, smooch. They need to be mostly united against the onslaught of middle school, lest the show feel too cruel, without being so joined at the hip (or in this case, boob) that there’s no conflict. The conflict continues into “hell week,” as Maya and Anna’s onstage bickering creates one of the funniest bits of the season. So he gallantly offers to date her, so they can kiss as themselves before they have to do it onstage. “Play” is the show’s first real deep dive into a key aspect of Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine’s autobiographies: that they are, and have always wanted to be, performers. This episode threads the needle perfectly, showing how a rift between friends can sometimes form without anyone really being at fault. Though he knows it’ll be hurtful, he even calls his friends “faggots” in front of fellow actor Ian, the school’s obvious “gay kid.” As the reality of the kiss looms, he tries to get out of it, not realizing quite how unstoppable Maya can get once she’s fixated on a boy. But despite its frankness on nearly every other topic, PEN15 has been pretty cagey about Anna and Maya’s aspirations. Unfortunately, Gabe is still gay — much as he’d like to deny it, both to himself and to Sam and Jafeer. The final-act face-off between the two groups is hysterically funny, from the duct-tape war paint on the techies’ all-black ensembles to the meticulously puff-painted inside-joke sweatshirts worn by the drama kids. That’s particularly illuminating for Anna, whose long-suffering attitude as an overwhelmed stage manager has not a little to do with what’s going on at home. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. It’s a moment of real warmth in the lunar landscape of middle-school romance, which Erskine quietly renders with a vivid flush of joy. It’s hard to pin down the exact role of Steve, the high-school freshman sent to supervise the middle-school techies. They may be dorks, but they’re still playing pretend as 13-year-olds because it’s more than a game for them. Maya, too, is gaining confidence in her abilities. He demands that “Obi-Wan Koneobi” stop apologizing for herself, and encourages her budding leadership among the wayward techies, eventually appointing her as the show’s stage manager. PEN15 has always had to walk a tough line with Anna and Maya’s friendship. That’s reflected in the show’s rendering of one of life’s great divides: the mutual antagonism of actors and techies. The show’s surrealism usually doesn’t extend to its characters, but in this case, Steve seems less like a cute older-boy crush and more like the parent/therapist that Anna desperately needs. So when Maya has that interest legitimized by landing a starring role in the school play, while Anna doesn’t even get a part, it’s a major blow. (It may have been a workaround so Erskine didn’t have to kiss a child actor, but it’s also one of those eerily prescient moments that make you wonder if artists are a little bit psychic.)

Gabe’s complicated coming-to-terms with queerness dovetails nicely with the episode’s central theme, which is Maya and Anna’s growing individuation as people. PEN15
Play

Season 2

Episode 6

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

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Photo: Lara Solanki/Hulu

Even as seventh-graders, most of us dreamt of what we wanted to be when we grew up. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! Gabe, who’s been paired with Maya as the show’s romantic lead, doesn’t want their first kiss to be a transactional scene in a play. It’s clear Anna is headed for a breaking point with her parents, and that no play is big enough to provide an outlet for that amount of emotion. Email

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Terms of Service apply. You can practically smell the desperation as Anna tries to change Greg the drama teacher’s mind by singing “Ave Maria” for him. Despite a rocky start in which Greg outright encourages one of her classmates to shit-talk her (seriously, is every teacher/coach at this school a sociopath?), she not only wins the other kids’ respect, but her first boyfriend as well. Lobbing F-bombs at a rate that would have given my middle-school teachers a coronary, Anna ruthlessly pauses Maya for cues and berates her for not knowing her light or her lines. Separately, they’ve been living their best lives, but returning to each other, they’re shown in their worst lights: Anna as demanding and susceptible to peer pressure, Maya as narcissistic and immature. As Maya moves forward as an actress and with a boy, she’s shown dealing with the fallout of hell week, sweeping up the theater and turning out the lights. Tags: Maya moans about being unable to access the “truth” of her character, because she’s always being interrupted.

“For so many of us, Justice Ginsburg was a real-life superhero: a beacon of hope, a warrior for justice, a robed crusader who saved the day time and again,” McKinnon said. “Playing her on SNL was a profound joy because I could always feel the overwhelming love and gratitude that the audience had for her.” McKinnon went on to share that “it was one of the great honors of my life to meet Justice Ginsburg, to shake her hand, and to thank her for her lifetime of service to this country.” Ginsburg was one of McKinnon’s most beloved impressions on SNL, with Ginsburg herself remarking, “I would like to say ‘Gins-burn!’ sometimes to my colleagues.” McKinnon joins a growing number of celebrities mourning the death of Ginsburg, including Felicity Jones, who also portrayed the late Justice onscreen in 2018’s On the Basis of Sex. McKinnon, who played Ginsburg on Saturday Night Live since her first season in 2012, honored the late Supreme Court Justice in a statement. Then Let RBG (Kate McKinnon) Show You How to Get Swole

Tags: Photo: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via

Kate McKinnon has shared her thoughts on the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday of pancreatic cancer. Related

An Ode to Kate McKinnon’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg Impression on SNL

Hollywood Pays Tribute to the Late, Great Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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(My parents would have killed me for racking up the phone bill, but presumably Maura’s are too rich to care.) Maya confesses that she’d give Maura about a 4 out of 10, and though Anna plays it off by saying Maya meant to give Maura “for-sure a 10,” it’s clear the battle lines have been drawn. The previous episode offered the barest hint that Gabe might be questioning his sexuality. PEN15
Sleepover

Season 2

Episode 5

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

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Photo: Hulu

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about PEN15’s second season is its deeper embrace of absurdism. Mutsuko Erskine continues to bring so much to PEN15, both in terms of grounding her daughter’s no-holds-barred performance and in busting the Asian-mom stereotype so prevalent on other shows. Like “Pool,” it’s all about the palace intrigue of teen socializing, where the slightest vulnerability can be either embraced or weaponized in seconds. But while Maura’s behavior is left unexplained, the sudden reveal of her fake friend does give Anna an opening to apologize to Maya. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! But with the show holding its cards uncharacteristically close to the vest, it’s hard to summon any empathy for Maura. Email

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Terms of Service apply. Each stroke of the grandfather clock portends the arrival of social doom. But after one of Maya’s “pads” clogs the toilet, Maura goes in for the kill, countering Maya’s denials of having had her first period by cruelly yanking Maya’s pants down. Imperious and crude even when one-on-one with Anna, Maura nearly comes to blows with Anna after she realizes Maura’s “bestie” is a cutout from a magazine ad. The show is inherently absurd — after all, it stars two grown women as seventh-graders — but Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine’s performances are so lived-in that it can be hard to remember the central premise is a goof. We’ll never know for sure, at least not this season. Yuki has a prickly self-regard, but it’s balanced with a deep well of compassion. Maura’s in her glory as she twists the knife over Maya’s Brandt obsession, informing her that he nearly changed schools because “you scared him so bad.”

As she endures these social slings and arrows, Maya is quietly fighting a second front, trying to stanch her flow with an ad-hoc toilet paper “pad.” (For those who don’t get periods, this is as much a rite-of-passage as getting your learner’s permit, but about one zillionth as fun.) Already creeped out by a white mask on the bathroom wall, Maya loses it completely when the girls lock her in for an impromptu round of Bloody Mary. Fearful of the consequences of falling asleep, Maya leans on the chugging skills she showcased in last season’s beer episode to gulp down most of a two-liter of Surge. Tags: Love, Simon this is not. The little touches of visual weirdness thrown into each episode, from Anna assuming the guise of Trish Stratus to “Vendy Wiccany”’s business card transforming before the girls’ eyes, have maintained the comic buoyancy of some really heavy material. A nifty camera technique visually evokes Gabe’s swirling thoughts, as he finds himself turned on by both the softcore and Sam’s presence. I only wish we had that level of insight into Maura, who remains a scary cipher. Jafeer and his passive-aggressive away message aren’t having it, but the softer-hearted Gabe agrees to an evening of WWE, snuck beers, and Skinemax in Sam’s bedroom. In the horror movie of adolescence, they are the final girls: bloodied, but unbroken. The show really goes for it, showing the mask sobbing rivulets of gore as it screams “SECRET BLOOD!”

Anna tries to get the girls to lay off Maya, who’s clearly met her edge. It adds another layer to what was already a moving storyline about friends growing apart, and it’s nice to see the show bring the same brutal-yet-heartfelt realism to budding queerness that it does to budding womanhood. While Maura’s mom has come off as a total pushover, she emerges to restrain her daughter from Anna with a touch so practiced that it’s clear this is not the first time — and that there may be a good reason she lets so much of Maura’s bad behavior slide. (Her loss: Erskine clearly spent years of her childhood rehearsing her Jim Carrey impression, and I am living for it.) Another bad hand for Maya arrives in the form of her period, shown through a painfully accurate X-ray reveal of her blood-soaked undies and scrunched thighs. She’s still mad that Maya didn’t spill the beans on getting her first period, but willing to acknowledge that it hasn’t been easy or simple for Maya, either. This one confirms it, but also deftly avoids any pat, male-gazey coming-out clichés. Is she a bad person, or a badly parented one? I was equally touched by the bathtub scene between Maya and her mom, in which she comforts Maya by helping her place the most important things — her self-worth and her friendship with Anna — in the “salad bowl” of her unquiet mind. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. The doom continues to mount in a bare-knuckle edition of Truth or Dare, in which Anna lets slip Maya’s history with Sam and both girls are held to account for the closet encounter with Brandt. (I wish I could say the show was being outrageously over-the-top here, but this was low-drama by the standards of some of my own tween sleepovers.)

The Grand Guignol slumber party is balanced by a quieter, but equally powerful B-plot surrounding Sam and his friends. Their sins are many — staining a comforter with pencil lead, tossing a Sprite-drenched library book — but their bond can survive the Mauras of the world. Only this time, there’s the additional wild card of Maura, a budding sociopath with an unpredictable mean streak. When it comes to revealing the unspoken indignities of female bodily functions, this show is peerless. Or is something else at play? The telltale wad of TP slips out, the girls scream bloody murder, and an utterly mortified Maya has to call her mom to take her home. “Sleepover” lets that freak flag fly, transforming a quotidian girls’ night into a literal and metaphorical horrorshow. And Maya, who took it on the chin for all vulnerability at the party, gets the comfort of returning to the complete (maybe too complete) honesty she has with Anna. At the sleepover itself, Maura further mortifies Maya by refusing to laugh at her impressive use of a duffle bag to recreate the rhino scene from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. The dramatic slasher music ratchets up as Maura, like generations of newly empowered tweens before her, announces she wants to push boundaries by staying up all night. After Brandt and his crew leave him out of a boys’ night, Sam tries to mend fences with Gabe and Jafeer over AIM. Every scene with both Erskines feels so genuine. The threat is palpable from the jump, when Anna rings up a mid-masturbation Maya to ask how much she likes Maura — whom Maya doesn’t know is listening in on three-way calling.

Tags: “We’re very proud to be involved with a show this relevant, smart, and daring. Related

EGOT Watch: Who Will Be Next to Complete the Awards Show Grand Slam? (And Ross, an EGOT.) Reznor is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year for his Nine Inch Nails work, and, with Ross, he won an Oscar in 2011 for The Social Network score and a Grammy in 2011 for the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo soundtrack. We were changed and affected by working on this and it’s great to see it resonate with the world at large,” Reznor said in a statement. Would you rather see him get a Tony with a NIN jukebox musical or an “Old Town Road” drama? The duo received the good news on September 18 during the final (and virtual) night of the Creative Arts Emmys. Trent Reznor, along with his frequent creative partner Atticus Ross, has taken home an Emmy in the Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series, Movie, or Special category for his work on HBO’s Watchmen. Photo: Getty Images

He’s getting closer every year. “Thanks very much to our families for tolerating us spending some long weeks and months in this cave. We love you, and thank you.” With their Emmy win, Reznor is one award away from achieving a coveted REGOT.

“Sometimes you’re just tired of the arguments and the buildups. “I don’t need drama to sell music,” she explained. I have a kid with this man, I have a household with this man,” Cardi said. I’ve been with this man for 4 years. You get tired sometimes. Bitch, I am the fucking clout. I’ve been with this man for four years. In an impassioned voice message on Friday evening, Cardi insisted that there wasn’t a scandalous reason for their separation, stating that the duo just grew apart after four years of a very public marriage. Stop with the shit. What is so bad about that?” In response to reports that their divorce is coming at a convenient time to promote her upcoming new album, Cardi grew irate. Photo-Illustration: Vulture, Getty Images and Shutterstock

Days after Cardi B and her wet ass pussy filed for divorce from her husband, Offset, the rapper went live on Instagram to address rumors and clickbait reports about their separation for the first time. Why would I need anything to sell my next record or next album?” In her divorce filing, which was filed on September 15 in Atlanta, Cardi stated that her marriage to Offset was “irretrievably broken” with “no prospects for a reconciliation.” Cardi is seeking primary custody of their 2-year-old daughter, Kulture. “I just want to be a free bird, okay? “I got tired of fucking arguing. I have a kid with this man, I have a household with this man. Sometimes you’re just tired of the arguments & build up” pic.twitter.com/btTOglE38L— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 19, 2020

“Nothing crazy out of this world happened, sometimes people really do grow apart. When you feel like things aren’t the same anymore, before you actually get cheated on, I’d rather just leave.”

Cardi B talks about divorce with Offset: "Nothing crazy out of this world happened, sometimes people really do grow apart. Stop. Related

Cardi B Also Hates Saying ‘Wet and Gushy’

Tags: “The reason for my divorce is not from none of that shit from ever before. I got tired of not seeing things eye-to-eye. I’ve got the number-one song right now. And before something bad happens, before you get left or cheated on, sometimes you just want to leave. It’s not from cheating,” she explained.

Before the violence, Hanover goes off on Bucket, sending her broken heart to cry in the bathroom, where Ratched and Briggs follow. Nurse Betsy Bucket’s crush on Dr. Sharon Stone is just wonderful here, playing a different register of camp than anyone else. • To be fair, no one is bad this season in terms of performance (except maybe Wittrock, but that’s because his character is so inconsistent). She gets shot in the chest, and Ed and Dolly flee the scene, ditching their car under a tree, heading off on foot. She could be manipulating her, or it could be true. The bulk of this episode is about a dance at Lucia and what happens there, but Murphy and his writers decide to unleash their worst idea of the season so far into this Glee-esque set-up: a woman with multiple personality disorder (now referred to as dissociative identity disorder). On the positive side, Jon Jon Briones and Judy Davis are very good at portraying the defiantly silly characters that have been written for them. Sometimes it’s fun, but not so much here. • Sharon Stone is everything so far. So much of it makes no sense in terms of logical plotting (like the existence of the dance) that one wishes it would just push the throttle and really go off the rails. He cries at the thought he’s done something successful. Murphy has always worked well with performers—it’s why so many return time and time again to him—but let’s hope they get more interesting things to do in the final three episodes. Back in the real world, Ratched tells Briggs she has feelings for her. She’s keeping things interesting. Honestly, the biggest problem with the midsection of this season has been boredom. But will she really kill Hanover? Eight episodes at a mental hospital from the creator of Asylum promises a degree of insanity that this show hasn’t really delivered. Hanover is a reminder of how much Ryan Murphy tends to treat adult characters like emotional teenagers. Lenore Osgood and her monkey arrive at the motel. And is one of her personalities Jesse Owens? “The Dance” meanders its way to the title event. Hanover tries hypnotherapy on Bucket to break her of her crush, which doesn’t work, and on Ms. Davis is doing a lot with very little here, elevating the subplot about how much her nurse loves the bad doctor into something genuine, while also verging just enough into camp to make it fun. She has a great scene in a lobby of a high-priced hotel with Ratched, who asks for $1 million to kill Hanover. Yes, Mildred Ratched became a power player at Lucia State Hospital in short order, basically getting Dr. She talks about winning five Gold medals in front of Hitler but Owens only won four. She is growling and prowling fury, the Murphy-verse vision of someone with mental issues. Again, she’s got the Jessica Lange role, the part that stole multiple seasons of AHS, and she knows it. Perhaps the most aggravating thing about “The Dance” is that it reflects another common problem of Murphy shows wherein adults act like dumb teenagers. Dolly grabs a gun, which ends up aimed at Briggs, who has rushed into the room after the noise. Sophie Okonedo comes screaming into the show, harassing someone playing violin on a bench. Nixon is playing Briggs’s feelings as 100 percent genuine, but Ratched is harder to read. Importantly, the enigmatic nurse invites Briggs to be her date to the mental hospital version of the prom. It’s revealed that Bucket and Louise, Amanda Plummer’s motel manager, are buddies, celebrating Bucket’s date to the dance with Hanover. Okay. How far can they possibly get? Terms & Privacy Notice
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• I couldn’t stop laughing at the serious-faced use of the phrase “vanguard insanity experiment.” It’s such a ridiculous line that I almost wish more of Ratched leaned into that campy tone. And she somehow talks other people into breaking them, too. Tags: Everything suddenly goes quiet as a shackled Edmund is led into the room, and allowed his freedom, which goes just about as well as expected. Later in the episode, she’ll be offered $100k and take it. Ratched
The Dance

Season 1

Episode 5

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

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Photo: SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX

Let’s be honest: This show has almost nothing to do with Ken Kesey’s character of Mildred Ratched other than a name and a profession. Listen, Ryan Murphy shows always require a study suspension of disbelief, but they also usually have consistent rules. The news that Evan Romansky’s spec script basically chose the IP for name recognition to get a young writer’s foot in the door isn’t too surprising, but further efforts to tie what people know about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to this origin story feel increasingly superficial. And not just a dance but one where the most famous mass murderer in the world will be able to take off his shackles and boogie in the name of something actually called by a screenwriter a “vanguard insanity experiment”?!? I could watch her sneak into a diner to scare Hanover or talk to her pet monkey all episode. It’s not necessarily a fatal flaw, but one wonders if the show would have worked just as well as an AHS installment instead of a thin connection to a classic. Ratched goes from ice-cold to warm with Briggs, who feels more and more like a plot device herself. To be fair, Okonedo devours each and every word, but it’s pretty hard to sell lines like, “Beethoven would fuck you in the face!” She claims to be Ondine Duquette, but her real name is Charlotte Wells, and she’s a flashy, showy supporting character on a show that arguably needed a little jolt of energy right now, but this character edges the show into exploitation of the mentally ill, and feels like a distraction when there’s not really a lot of time left to get distracted this season. This is just a set-up so they’re not in the room at first when Edmund slits the throat of poor Harold the guard. Which brings us to “The Dance,” the most ridiculous episode of the show so far in terms of realistic plotting. Email

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Terms of Service apply. And consistency has been the biggest problem with Ratched. The dance is the kind silly fever dream one would expect, with Briones looking like he was directed to have an active nervous breakdown while doing the Charleston. None of these characters are consistent. Wells to cure her disorder, which seems to actually take. It’s really hard to tell how Paulson and the writers want us to read it. Hanover and even the governor’s assistant Gwendolyn Briggs under her thumb in an effort to save her brother Edmund Tolleson, but does anyone buy the concept of a dance at a hospital with dangerous patients? Most of all, the Ratched of the book and film follows every order; the Ratched of this show breaks every single rule. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! This character makes me very nervous, and not in a good way. Maybe it will in the final three. Still, it feels like that’s who it’s supposed to be. • But then we might get more Charlotte Wells. And the plan becomes clearer: Edmund will cause a scene at the dance and flee into the night with Dolly.

Photo: Channel 4

We’ll be the ones giving Paul Hollywood a handshake this time: The Great British Baking Show has not only finished filming its upcoming 11th season amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Netflix will be premiering the new season on September 25. And unlike the previous format of bakers sneaking away from family and friends to film Baking Show on the weekends, this season was filmed consecutively for nearly two months. The show’s signature countryside tent wasn’t used at all, with the bakers, judges (there’s a new one), and crew all forced to quarantine and remain in a “biosphere” for six weeks at a nearby hotel. “Everything was complicated, everything was different,” an executive producer explained to Radio Times, “but everybody wanted to do it.” Ensuring the safety of ingredients was integral, too — no morsel of butter or teaspoon of flour was spared upon delivery. “They cleaned all the packages, left them under UV lights, and they were then packaged and sent by courier,” another executive producer explained. (We did the math … only a few more days!) Per an article in Radio Times, though, expect some noticeable differences to adapt to our new normal. Related

Great British Baking Show’s David Atherton on Overcoming the Paul Hollywood Bias

Steph Blackwell Broke Out of Her ‘Introverted’ Shell for the British Baking Show

Tags: “When the packages arrived, the bakers then had to clean them again.” Ready, set, bake responsibly.

Sadly, video blogging is not an option. Their daughter, influencer and blogger Olivia Jade, allegedly knew about the college admissions scandal and was an active participant in trying to get into the University of Southern California. Lori Loughlin, who was recently sentenced to two months in prison after pleading guilty for her involvement in the college admissions scandal, will be serving out her sentence at a federal correctional institution in Victorville, California. Loughlin’s husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced to five months in federal prison along with a $250,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. She must surrender to the facility, which houses about 300 inmates, to begin her sentencing by November 19. But if you take proximity out of the equation and browse the inmate handbook, it’s pretty obvious why Loughlin chose this joint: In striking parallels to Goop’s annual retreat, the prison offers Pilates, yoga, cross training, spinning, and step aerobics as daily exercise programs, in addition to crochet, beading, painting, ceramics, and origami as crafts. Us Weekly reports that a judge granted Loughlin’s request to serve at the “medium-security prison,” as it’s the closest facility to her home in Southern California. In addition to her two-month federal prison sentence, Loughlin has been fined $150,000 and must fulfill 150 hours of community service upon release. Related

Olivia Jade Knew About the College Admissions Scandal, Prosecutors Allege

Tags: If Loughlin fancies, she can also take classes in guitar theory, nutrition, wellness, calisthenics, and … song writing. Photo: CJ Gunther/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Maybe the Eagleton jail had the right idea all along.

It’s pretty hard to oversell the grim honesty of this scene, which felt like an acid flashback to my own teenage years. A lot. Confident, opinionated, and generous, she’s the answer to a social pariah’s prayers. PEN15
Three

Season 2

Episode 4

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

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Photo: Hulu

One of the hardest things about adulthood is making new friends, likely because childhood is such bad preparation for it. The camera lingers on each seductive aspect of her lifestyle, from the Limited Too ensembles to the take-no-shit attitude with both parents and bullies. She’s also a grade-A spoiled brat. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. We see hints that not all is well with Maura, like when she tells Anna and Maya about an obviously fake best friend who’s Arizona’s answer to Doogie Howser. Newly brand-conscious thanks to Maura, Maya is furious when her mom won’t let her buy the “loaded” Tommy Hilfiger tee she covets. But Anna is still invested in the friendship, so Maya decides to let it go. Tags: Interestingly, this same episode offers the most nuanced depiction yet of PEN15’s most unsympathetic character: Anna’s mom, Kathy. While Anna and Maya are far from poor —they have their own bedrooms, computers in the house, on-trend outfits and plenty of toys — their visit to Maura’s house genuinely summons that feeling of awe when you got invited over to a really, really rich kid’s place. Erskine and Konkle have set a high standard for accuracy in their performances, but their whininess, sullenness, and writhing are on another level here. When Anna calls her a cunt for not letting Maura ride home with them, she’s not so much angry as protective, redirecting her fury towards whatever brought the word into Anna’s consciousness. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! Maura hammers that home by mocking Maya’s clothes and Yuki’s accent, raising Maya’s hackles enough that it seems that the spell might finally be broken. The episode ends with an unexpected win for the girls: a class superlative for “Best Best Friends.” But the joy is tempered by Maura’s inclusion in the group, which Maya and Anna are unaware she purchased through Ring Pop bribery. This is about as real as adolescence gets, and it is very, very tough to watch. I remember being equally awed by the laissez-faire discipline in those kids’ houses, though Maura — who calls her mom a cunt for trying to make her friends a quesadilla — takes it to another level. But that’s middle-school friendship for you: the only thing worse than having a bad friend is having none at all. Yes, she’s still as self-absorbed as ever, thinking it’s more important to “heal” Anna’s energy fields than to reassure her about the looming possibility that they’ll lose the house. Like Maya’s mom, she has a sixth sense that Maura is bad news. It’s possible that’s waiting for a future episode, but in the meantime, she comes off as a full-on sociopath, which is very much not PEN15’s way. (Maya, snickering: “I cun’t remember.”)

The conflict over Maura comes to a head when the two mothers and daughters go thrift shopping, an attempt at bonding that backfires spectacularly. This is a show that prides itself on granting full humanity to every character, acknowledging the complexity that drives even their worst actions. Friendships are legitimized before they’re cemented, instead of the other way around. Like a tiny, powerful tyrant, Maura sees anyone who dares challenge her as a “fool,” and she isn’t afraid to say it. The soft-focus glide through Maura’s fully loaded pantry felt like Proust’s madeleine; I could practically taste the Gushers. Maura (Ashlee Grubbs) just suddenly appears in Anna and Maya’s corner like an avenging angel, deftly putting one of their bullies in his place before lavishing them with Ring Pops and compliments. But there’s no acknowledgment of what’s behind her frenzy to insert herself as their third bestie, and the rampant lies she’s willing to tell to make that happen. She’s tried on the role of Maura, and unlike the more insecure Anna, found she doesn’t have the stomach for it. But it’s clear that Kathy does care about Anna’s feelings, and about the kind of person she becomes. When you’re a kid and you’re circling around a new friend, you just sort of mutually agree that the friendship has already happened — you both like the same TV show, or soda, and from there it was just meant to be. But for Maya — who actually does have a good relationship with her mom, at least by tween girl standards — the moment is also a sea change. “Three” really nails that dynamic, and the sometimes thrilling, sometimes uncomfortable feeling of suddenly having a new best friend you didn’t even know the week before. At the same time, Maura feels off-brand for PEN15. The symbolism of the moment is a little pat, as Maya is encouraged to don a Kangol hat that doesn’t fit and trade in her omnipresent best-friend necklace for a new threesome version. Email

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Terms of Service apply. Her sledgehammer subtlety in trying to get Anna to open up about her crushes, or her feelings about the divorce, is equally hard to take. Kathy presses Anna into a revealing outfit, then takes offense when Anna calls it (and by implication, her) “slutty.”

The tensions culminate in a full-scale meltdown at another store, with Maya calling Yuki ugly, Yuki calling Maya a bitch, Kathy defending Yuki, and Anna calling Kathy a cunt again, this time for embarrassing Maya.

But doesn’t Ratched’s morality and even sexuality feel inconsistently fluid? Is she literally going to break him out? He was huffing last episode and injecting this one. The truly inept private dick played by Corey Stoll doesn’t realize that the woman at the motel who he thinks is just a kinky fling is actually a total sociopath and will apparently do anything to protect her boss, Dr. The first major death of the season comes to an actor who wasn’t given enough to do. Random choice or thematic? • Why do you think they have Bucket reading All the King’s Men every day at lunch? Who cares about Edmund and Dolly, right? As Briggs says, it’s the only one in town, anyway. Tags: Although maybe she’s turning a corner there. She’s willing to almost lose her job — which would destroy her plan for Edmund, by the way — to send away the lesbian couple of Cartwright and Ingrid. Rough way to go. That being said, until the closing scenes, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Ratched is losing some of its focus. Osgood. The two have more kinky sex, but this time Briggs listens through the door at the motel after leaving her sham marriage. He ends up being shot in the face twice by a guard, and his body is burned in the basement of Lucia. It’s the story of a nurse trying to save her brother, who happens to be a deranged serial killer. Again, let’s try to pull back and ask what Ratched is about. A stronger version of this show would make the stakes and plans of its protagonist more defined. Maybe Ratched suspects she needs to learn exactly what Briggs saw, because she invites her out on another date down the shore, ostensibly to celebrate leaving her husband. Extra Dosage

• What does the leech-using character played by Amanda Plummer think her cheap oceanside motel is used for other than infidelity? Ratched
Angel of Mercy, Part Two

Season 1

Episode 4

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

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Photo: SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX

The first season of Ratched finally gets a major death, the kind of moment that would have lit up message boards back in the heyday of American Horror Story, when Ryan Murphy was working in a weekly format instead of a streaming service’s full-season drop. He’s perfect for this episode. All of this happens with Briggs in the building, and she notices the blood on Hanover’s floor. Forget politics, let’s get wild. Hanover, including killing her latest friend with benefits. The show may not be exactly where it seemed to be going from the start — and the connection between this character and the Kesey/Forman version is getting fuzzier instead of clearer — but a horror showdown between Sarah Paulson and Sharon Stone has some undeniable camp potential that could happen only in the Murphy-verse. The leech scene is pretty wonderful, though. Whether she’s playing a long game or acting instinctively, Ratched comes to Charles and offers to help him stop Hanover at any cost. Does she now know too much to make it through the next four episodes? This show has used monster-movie visual language before (and should do it more), and he looks like something out of a classic Hammer flick. Poor Charles Wainwright. • How many drugs is Hanover addicted to? The writers seem to be figuring her out that way too. Does she think she can cure him? Ratched sometimes lacks urgency because of a sense that it’s being made up as it goes along. Terms & Privacy Notice
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Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! He shot two chapters of Murphy’s Hollywood and nine of his American Horror Story over the years. Only time will tell. Email

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Terms of Service apply. And where’s this character going? He’s always good. And she even claims to see them in a way that doesn’t exactly jibe with how much she has denied her own urges with Briggs. • Corey Stoll, we hardly knew ye. Is she just comic relief? It’s getting a little hard to figure out Mildred Ratched’s overall plan, but it clearly involves getting rid of anyone who gets in her way. He somehow breaks out of the tub before dying and shambles down the hall, his skin practically falling off. To be fair, Ratched lives up to its gross-out potential in this episode after Wainwright is boiled alive in the hydrotherapy tub. To who else will she prescribe her mercy? How? Given the unrealistic ease with which she wheeled him to the tub room for a rub and tug from Dolly, that would probably be easy, but it seems unlikely. Osgood and Ratched in the second half of the season. However, it’s important that Ratched reached its halftime this season with a flashback to a formative event in the history of its title character, when she really became the angel of mercy and suffocated an injured soldier. • Directing duties on this episode went to a great TV professional, Michael Uppendahl, who has helmed excellent episodes of Fargo, Castle Rock, and Ray Donovan. She figured out that he’s there trying to find her boss at the behest of Ms. Even Briggs is starting to feel like a pawn in Murphy’s kinky horror game, as she’s brought into the world of Ratched’s violence in a way that feels forced. She is alternately portrayed as a savior and a sociopath, which fits with a woman who likes being seen as an “angel of mercy,” someone willing to do whatever it takes for what’s right. Murphy and his team layer Elmer Bernstein’s “Max” from Cape Fear into the soundtrack again and turn up the knob on their split-screen usage, indicating that things are about to get weird in a way that only a show from the creator of AHS can get weird. Before then, Briggs tells Ratched something important: The governor will defund the hospital if Edmund is deemed unfit to stand trial. I hope Murphy puts him in another project. • The juxtaposition of Briggs talking about “true, full love” with Ratched’s saying, “Ice machine’s down the hall,” is funny given how coldly Ratched sees the world. If that includes breaking out the lesbian couple before they’re subjected to more hydrotherapy or burning a man alive, so be it. The final scene sets up a battle between Ms. Or maybe Ratched helping two women find happiness together has allowed her to embrace her own sexuality? It’s kind of a cheap way to bring Briggs deeper into the narrative and is amplified even more by a later nighttime visit that doesn’t make a ton of sense in terms of timing. Maybe Mildred Ratched is just figuring out her plan as she deals with the roadblocks in front of her one at a time.

According to Deadline, the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator and star reaffirms her brand is strong by executive producing I’m in Love With the Dancer From My Bat Mitzvah, written by Ilana Wolpert, herself a former CEG assistant. Sources

Deadline

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Tags: I’m in Love With the Dancer From My Bat Mitzvah, allegedly “inspired by real events,” follows a new college grad who “after being romantically rejected by her best friend, becomes obsessed with a dancer from her bat mitzvah, leading her and her friends down a dangerous rabbit hole of criminal conspiracy.” All in all, definitely more ill-advised than merely moving to beautiful West Covina, the pride of the Inland Empire, which is famously only two hours from the beach. The series, now in development at The CW, is described as a “romantic mystery comedy drama,” which, again, is exactly how we’d describe Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, minus the whole musical part, with a dash of Search Party. Photo: JC Olivera/WireImage

A lonely young woman seized by a romantic obsession and driven down the winding paths of self-realization and delusion? Why, that’s basically Rachel Bloom’s Bat signal!

The question at hand: Is a hot dog a sandwich? Before the pair hit the gym, however, Colbert challenged Ginsburg to an intellectual debate. Related

Hollywood Pays Tribute to the Late, Great Ruth Bader Ginsburg

An Ode to Kate McKinnon’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg Impression on SNL

Tags: So, in memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, enjoy her barely breaking a sweat, while making Stephen Colbert work for that final high-five. After 2018’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary RBG welcomed America behind the scenes of the late Supreme Court justice’s life, one element of Ginsburg’s day-to-day routine that tickled viewers pink was the octogenarian’s commitment to fitness, with Kate McKinnon parodying the at-home version on SNL, Ginsburg’s trainer Bryant Johnson demonstrating her moves on Good Morning America, and, at one point that March, RBG herself stopping by The Late Show to show Stephen Colbert she wasn’t messing around when it comes to staying in shape. You’ll have to watch the video above to see her entire thought process, but just know that it requires first establishing the definition of a sandwich, and then admitting, somewhat ruefully, that under Colbert’s definition of a sandwich, a hot dog could logically be considered one.

And also… Gutted. She taught us all so much. I will miss her deeply.”

Related

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dead at 87

The Glorious RBG

Tags: This one hurts so bad. There are no proper words to thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg- all we can do is promise to keep fighting in her name, for the many freedoms she gave us and the rights she proclaimed as unassailable. Her memory is already a blessing. What she means to our past was only rivaled by what she still meant for our futures. A principled woman. Please. Rest in ferocity, #RBG, knowing you really did it. That’s kinda all you need to know 😢(Although of course there’s SO much more we all need to know)— Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins) September 19, 2020

Everyone freak out tonight. She had endured multiple bouts of cancer before succumbing to the disease." There are no words.— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) September 19, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The epitome of a strong woman. You were a champion and a hero. The nation mourns this loss quite deeply. Okay?(fuck)#RBG— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) September 18, 2020

"Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." RIP, RBG pic.twitter.com/HLtKG7qdnp— Robert Downey Jr (@RobertDowneyJr) September 19, 2020

I am crying. Please. But we must fight as she fought till the bitter end no matter what we cannot and must not succumb to cynicism!!!— John Leguizamo (@JohnLeguizamo) September 19, 2020

View this post on Instagram Truly believed she was eternal- we needed her to be eternal. I hope you rest well, RBG, you must have been tired from changing the world.— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) September 19, 2020

"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time." – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg— The Academy (@TheAcademy) September 19, 2020

My friends, the great "Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the US Supreme Court and its most determined advocate for gender equality, has died at the age of 87. Thank you for your tireless work https://t.co/5v32VgODTg— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) September 18, 2020

RIP RBG. Her rest is earned. It is our turn to fight.— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) September 19, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the kind of scholar and patriot you get excited about explaining to your kids. Sad.Grateful for all she did. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK— Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins) September 18, 2020

Her nickname was Kiki. pic.twitter.com/Pn5zB72Mz9— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 19, 2020

pic.twitter.com/1OwVSXFXMf— Stevie Nicks (@StevieNicks) September 19, 2020

Felicity Jones, who portrayed RBG in the 2018 film On the Basis of Sex, released a statement to praise the late justice. Photo: Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

If her nearly three-decades on the United States Supreme Court hadn’t secured her place in history (and it had), our collective cultural embrace of Ruth Bader Ginsburg definitely solidified her status as a pop culture great. She was good woman. #YouWereTheFairestOfThemAll— octavia spencer (@octaviaspencer) September 19, 2020

#rbg #RuthBaderGinsburg Rest with the best! She fought for the citizens of this country and for equality and equity for us all.She was our shield. (Incredible art by @bijoukarman) #RutherBaderGinsberg #RBG #RestInPower A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Sep 18, 2020 at 5:13pm PDT

No matter where we go from here, this is a remarkably selfless statement to make on your deathbed: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed.”RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg.— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) September 19, 2020

This is a devastating personal loss for so many. The late justice, who passed away Friday at the age of 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, an A-list historical drama, an opera, a blog-turned-book entitled Notorious RBG, a loving Saturday Night Live impression, a shout-out in Deadpool 2, and an officially-approved Lego figurine. May it also be a call to continue her work for justice and equality under the law. We will miss you. The second woman ever to be named to the Supreme Court, a defender of gender equality, and a collar style maven, Ginsburg was remembered Friday on social media after news of her death broke, with celebrities and the American public alike paying tribute to her online. #RIPRBG 💔— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) September 19, 2020

My deepest condolences to Justice Ginsberg’s loved ones. “She will be missed not only as a beacon of light in these difficult times but for her razor sharp wit and extraordinary humanity. pic.twitter.com/ZYhFRSUakT— Carole King (@Carole_King) September 19, 2020

Rest In Peace justice Ginsberg. The kind of person who you say “who knows, one day you could be HER”. Everyone get to work tomorrow. But more than that, it is a devastating loss for our country. And very very scared.— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) September 18, 2020

First of all, may she rest as she lived – in immeasurable POWER. She believed in us.Please #Vote in honor of her. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave us hope, a public figure who stood for integrity and justice- a responsibility she did not wear lightly,” Jones said. And that’s just in the last seven years.

I never went spelunking into the woods to cast a Geocities-sourced love spell on my crush, but I definitely knew girls who did. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! As with the original craze, it’s a backlash to the backlash, countering a society that tries to control women with the fantasy of seizing power right back. At the time, kids definitely knew about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, but it was a shallow understanding that mainly centered on Lewinsky being an object of scorn. And so both girls decide to run away to the woods, where Anna tries to cast a spell to make herself disappear. It’s a heartbreaking moment, tempering the show’s central sweetness — that Anna and Maya are there for each other, no matter what — with the harsh reality of their powerlessness. (With its usual fearlessness, the show displays the raw bald patch she’s torn on her scalp.)

Yet, instead of questioning why Anna might be drawn to living in her own magical universe, her parents immediately start bickering about their continued cohabitation and whether this is proof that one of them should move out. Slut-shaming has been an aspect of every episode so far this season, and for good reason: At that moment, it was its own quiet witch hunt, permeating everyone’s consciousness and making them eager to distance themselves from similar accusations. Email

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Terms of Service apply. At home, a mortified Shuji twists the knife, telling Maya she should just go away. Anna, ignored by her parents, wishes she “wasn’t a problem.” Maya wishes she was blonde and hairless instead of Asian — and for “a group of friends that love us.” Both wish the closet incident with Brandt had never happened. “Vendy Wiccany” makes no bones about why the girls decide to pretend they’re witches; they discover their “powers” after fleeing a violent fight between Anna’s parents, and their demands quickly descend from the prosaic (more money, a pair of white jeans) to the raw. With the logical leaps of tweens who still think like kids, they decide that a realtor — Wendy Viccany — is actually “Vendy Wiccany,” a powerful mother witch who’s watching over their nascent attempts at spell-casting. Maya Erskine plays the scene perfectly, her face twisted into a polite smile as both she and Anna sit in mute shock. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. But Anna, living on the sidelines of the Kones’ brutal fights, is more focused on trying to get them back together. That adds extra sting to Brandt’s confrontation with Maya, who’s crushed when he tells her that he doesn’t like her and wants her to leave him alone. Adolescence is a curse, and there’s no breaking its spell. One of the saddest scenes in the episode is the simplest: a shot of Anna picking some shell out of the plate of scrambled eggs she’s served for dinner, presumably because her folks couldn’t be bothered to cook her a normal meal. Taylor Nichols and Melora Walters do great work playing believable — yet boldly unsympathetic — parents who are so caught up in their own drama that their kid is an afterthought. PEN15
Vendy Wiccany

Season 2

Episode 3

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

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Photo: Erica Parise/Hulu

From the first episode of PEN15, I’ve been wondering when the show would take on the late-’90s Wicca craze. Asked her opinion, Anna earnestly tells her parents that she thinks they should get back together and confesses that she’d eavesdropped the previous night as her dad came to her mom’s room for make-up sex. Pentagram necklaces, Ouija boards, and Bloody Mary were sleepover fixtures. Faced with the prospect of losing her only friend, Maya breaks down, begging Anna to stay as they both collapse into sobs. When one of the wishes is fulfilled (Maya’s dad comes home early from his concert tour), the pair fully commit to their obsession, stealing hairs and clothing from classmates, braiding their hair with beads and feathers, and speaking in a mutually developed nonsense language for their spell-casting. Thanks to Charmed, Buffy, The Craft, Practical Magic, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, I don’t think a single middle-school girl of the era (myself included) didn’t wonder if she might be in possession of supernatural powers. Tags: Believing herself responsible for one of her parents having to move out, she wills herself to believe her fingers are vanishing — Back to the Future style. “Are you in love with my dad, or are you just a Monica?” she asks her mom, before explaining, sotto voce, “Lewinsky.”

The moment is notable because it’s one of the few times PEN15 has ever referred to a cultural hallmark of the era more serious than a Nickelodeon show. For two girls as outcast as Anna and Maya, the appeal is obvious. In a show with no end of rough subject matter, the Kones’ divorce might be the most brutal. Maya, still fixated on Brandt, creates a voodoo doll designed to ensnare him. Like the previous episodes, “Vendy Wiccany” is unafraid to end on a down note, as Anna’s mom hunts fruitlessly for her in the house while Maya, the closest thing Anna has to a caring family, cradles her on the front lawn. The Kones are finally forced to pay attention to Anna after she and Maya get busted by their classmates for casting spells in an abandoned school greenhouse. She even casts a “spell” to renounce her crush on Alex, telling Maya that even if they did get together, they’d just end up like her folks anyway. They’re also upbraided by the principal for Maya’s habit of repeatedly stuffing hanks of her hair into Brandt’s locker. This particular flavor of magical thinking appears to be back in style, from Lana del Rey hexing Trump to those TikTok “baby witches” cursing the moon.

Meanwhile, Kate McKinnon delivered “Gins-burns” as the justice on Saturday Night Live as recently as this spring. “Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. Supreme Court since 1993, has died at the age of 87. “We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

Before being nominated for the Court by then-President Bill Clinton, becoming the second woman ever to take the bench, Ginsburg co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU, which took on hundreds of sex discrimination cases, six of which she argued herself against the Court, in addition to becoming the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School. Sources

NPR

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Tags: In their statement, the Court said the late justice passed away at home, surrounded by family. Ginsburg, whose husband Martin passed away in 2010, is survived by her children Jane and James. The Supreme Court announced her death on Friday, the result of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for DVF

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the U.S. Her legacy was further secured by the Oscar-nominated 2018 documentary RBG from Betsy West and Julie Cohen, and the 2018 scripted drama On The Basis of Sex, based on Ginsburg’s early work as a litigator, starring Felicity Jones. Over the course of her 27-year-tenure as a justice, Ginsburg rose to the level of feminist and pop culture icon, earning the nickname Notorious RBG.

And one could imagine her dissents set to music. Although Marty is gone, Ginsburg is shown having fun with her granddaughter (a Harvard Law School grad in a class that was 50-50 men and women), surveying her collection of collars, and appearing live onstage in an opera. Photo: The Notorious RBG. After graduation, no New York law firm would hire her — or any other woman. He does better with her than he did a few years earlier with Anita Hill. Beginning in 1973 with Frontiero v. As we all mourn the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we strongly encourage you to watch the wonderful, Oscar-nominated 2018 documentary RBG, which is available to subscribers of Hulu and to rent on such platforms as Amazon and Apple TV+. The movie opens with Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings before Joe Biden and his hair transplants. Ginsburg, says Feigen, has the ability to compartmentalize; “I don’t have close friends who are right-wing nutcases.” I commend right-winger Ted Olson for agreeing to be interviewed along with his formidable hair about a case in which he went up against Ginsburg and lost. Scalia’s dark suggestions that it could lead to bestiality didn’t sway him, somehow. Bush’s replacement for Marshall, Clarence Thomas. As someone in the film puts it, she mounted her attack on gender inequality case by case, a little at a time: “It was like knitting a sweater.” Ginsburg says that in the ‘70s she saw herself as “a kindergarten teacher … [the male justices] didn’t get gender laws.” Those are stereotypically feminine roles — the sweater-knitter and the kindergarten teacher — but they left justices (and frequently, her opponents) speechless. There are few downbeats to this story. But then, even Utah Republican Orrin Hatch finds Ginsburg impressive. Every revolution needs someone hitting the books until 4 a.m. Ginsburg’s victories over that code took a lot of hard preparation. Too bad. Yes, RGB is a hagiography, but it has its cheeky aspect. One can imagine playful but scorching duets with the tenor playing Nino Scalia. while others march in the streets. RBG was nominated for two Oscars in 2019, including Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. But as you listen to Ginsburg reads her words, you begin to perceive the secret of her power. They already ring in our ears. Below is our review of the film, which was originally published on May 7, 2018. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the tiny, monkish, soft-spoken, octogenarian Supreme Court justice who bestrides the world like a colossus; in their documentary RBG, directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West stride right behind her with a camera and a microphone. Perhaps he’s feeling more confident with liberals these days, having had too many principles to be on the wrong side of history re: gay marriage. It begins with a montage of government landmarks, many in the shadow of the Washington Monument. RBG’s talking heads — with the exception of Donald Trump (and what an exception) — are affectionate bordering on worshipful. Apart from Scalia and their mutual opera fandom, Ginsburg follows Supreme Court etiquette and doesn’t speak about her colleagues. Sometimes a Washington Monument is just a Washington Monument, but one could be forgiven for watching the film and thinking that our nation’s capitol operated for 200 years under a sort of penile code. Supreme Court — a “captive audience,” she recalls, with delight. Felicity Jones — last seen delivering Death Star specs to R2D2 and dying a hero’s death — will play her in an upcoming biopic. Richardson, Ginsberg (representing the ACLU) took a chisel to centuries of encrusted male privilege. Having styled her legal activism on the young Thurgood Marshall’s, it must be doubly depressing to sit beside George H.W. Even with such rich material, the movie can be a tad prosaic. Tags: As she tells her story, Cohen and West show us pictures of the young, radiant, blue-eyed Ruth Bader growing up, heading off to Cornell, and meeting Marty Ginsburg, who’d spend 56 by all accounts joyous years at her side. I especially liked her comments about the late reactionary firebrand Antonin Scalia, with whom Ginsberg bonded over their passion for opera. It’s thrilling. The Notorious RBG. One watches RBG and hopes that a composer and librettist will create a Notorious RBG opera and that she will be there opening night. Both the film and the “notorious” figure at its center are the best imaginable retaliation to mansplaining. A true lady wouldn’t speak up, says Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the Air Force who in the early ‘70s found out she didn’t qualify for certain military benefits given automatically to men. NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg does some of the onstage interviewing and much of the movie’s expository heavy lifting, but the young Notorious RBG co-authors Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik provide vivid color; the professor Arthur Miller recalls the early lives of Ginsburg and the gregarious, supportive Marty, who would sometimes drag her away from the office for dinner; and Brenda Feigen — a differently styled feminist — adds wonderfully tart details. It is only right, only prudent to shut up and listen. Her mode was and is less brash, her maxim, “Be a lady and be independent.”

Cohen and West make clear that those things were once mutually exclusive. It was her first argument before the U.S. When it gutted the voting rights act by 5-4 on the grounds that its protections were no longer needed, Ginsburg wrote, “It is like taking away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you’re not getting wet.” Words like that inspired the Notorious RBG meme and T-shirts in which her head sits atop the body of Wonder Woman. She was one of nine women in her Harvard Law School class of 500. The movie has the audio. But opposite such smug reactionaries, she found her voice a second time as perhaps the most eloquent dissenter in the court’s history. Not all men in his position would face a largely female documentary crew under such circumstances. When Ginsburg is shown being interviewed onstage, audiences (particularly young women) are visibly overwhelmed, seeming to lean back in awe even as they lean forward to hear their superhero (Gloria Steinem’s word) answer questions and read from her momentous arguments, majority opinions, and dissents. But she didn’t go, shall we say, balls out to attack the system’s sexist underpinnings.

But Roku isn’t hiding its desire to get paid for putting Peacock on its devices, blaming owner Comcast for the standoff. NOW PLAYING: BUFFERING
Sign up for Vulture’s insider newsletter on the streaming industry from editor Joe Adalian. (And if you don’t think I’ve been watching episodes of it on Roku, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention to my Twitter feed.)

Amazon and its Fire TV platform are also in the ad business, mostly through the IMDb TV free streaming service (which is very similar to the Roku Channel). Neither side was commenting on terms of the deal, though a Roku spokesman said the agreement represents “an expanded, mutually beneficial relationship between our companies that includes adding NBC content to The Roku Channel and a meaningful partnership around advertising.” A rep for Peacock said the deal indicates that “Roku recognizes the value in making NBCUniversal’s incredible family of apps and programming, including Peacock, available to all of their users across the country.” Look for Peacock to begin showing up in the Roku app store within days. “I’m not going to get into details of ongoing negotiations,” he said. Peacock may have Parks and Recreation, but the legendar-(ily mediocre) Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan calls the Roku Channel home. The ads are everywhere, and they’re very effective at selling the service. Its objections have been focused on not wanting to give up control of its advertising inventory and user experience. Photo: Jenny Kane/AP/Shutterstock

Update: The months-long standoff between Roku and NBCUniversal’s Peacock is over. Head to vulture.com/buffering and subscribe today! This story first ran in Buffering, Vulture’s newsletter about the streaming industry. Like Apple, Roku long ago decided it didn’t want to just make money selling hardware. Unfortunately, many of the consumers inspired by those promos to check out Peacock are just now finding out that you can’t do that on television — if you do your streaming with a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device, at least. And we think that this should be very interesting to them.”

In the meantime, Peacock social-media managers have taken to using the hashtag #FreeTheBird when explaining to customers why the app isn’t on some platforms. “It’s disappointing that Comcast has refused reasonable and standard industry terms and decided not to launch Peacock on Roku at a time when streaming is surging,” a rep for the company said via email. And late last month, Peacock boss Matt Strauss told me he was “hopeful” about being able to “get everybody on board” at some point. Earlier this week, a rep for Peacock said negotiations were continuing. “But we think we offer all the distribution partners a really interesting product. The two companies have reached a deal to give Roku users access to the new-ish streaming service, sources told Vulture Friday (and Roku later confirmed via statement). In addition, Peacock and HBO Max have also not yet announced a deal to join Amazon’s Fire TV platform. Original Post: NBCUniversal has spent millions hyping the launch of Peacock. Email

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Terms of Service apply. That may sound very consumer-friendly, except that it means streamers cede control of how users experience and discover content from their platforms and, more importantly, it means losing access to precious subscriber data, such as how subscribers binge a show. Where the battle stands now: Amazon isn’t commenting about talks with the new streamers. It now makes much of its cash selling advertising, either by giving over space on its homepage to streamers looking to sell their apps and shows, or more recently, through its own Roku Channel, which competes with services like Peacock by aggregating library content from studios and networks and offering them for free to users. While the situation with Peacock isn’t identical to what’s going on with HBO Max (and HBO Original Recipe, which won’t be streamable at all on Roku as of next month), the basic issue boils down to two things: money (shocker!) and data. The Price Is Right for Peacock

The 50 Best Movies on Peacock

Tags: “We want to bring Peacock to our large customer base of avid streamers … Unfortunately, Comcast is trying to launch a primarily ad-supported business while refusing to share in the ad model with platform partners.”

How will it all shake out? Industry insiders familiar with the situation say NBCU actually isn’t refusing to compensate Roku (or Amazon) for being on those platforms. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. We’ve got a different idea than others have. Meanwhile, a rep for HBO Max tells Vulture there are no new developments in that streamer’s battle with Roku. And both companies have been going further than simply selling ads: They also want to control how audiences get their streaming programming. Related

So, How Do You Actually Watch Peacock? Peacock has been MIA from the Roku platform since its July 15 national launch, a victim of squabbling between the companies over revenue sharing, NBCU’s desire to use its own ad-serving tech and whether or not NBC-owned content would be added to Roku’s free programming service the Roku Channel. Much the same way HBO Max was unable to come to an agreement to get its service on those platforms, Peacock has so far been similarly plucked over by the device-makers’ demands.

Ten years ago, this part might have gone to Jessica Lange, but it’s great to see Stone get something juicy in the Murphy-verse. It’s just a tad too underwritten at this point, although both actresses are good enough to make this work with just a few more scenes together. Anyway, the revelation is that Nurse Ratched now knows Hanover’s biggest secret. Osgood has a dark history with Hanover, and she paid Wainwright $10K to find him — if you’re curious, that’s over $100K in 2020 dollars. Dolly? The show has a consistent quality sheen to it that helps pardon some of the screenwriting flaws. Back to the Lucia Mental Hospital, where Nurse Bucket brings some lilies of the valley into Hanover’s office. Ratched probably worries that she’s becoming a sinner herself. It doesn’t go well, but her boss does give the head nurse an assignment: to help with treating the lesbianism of Ms. Her Ms. Email

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Terms of Service apply. Let’s hope that shifts soon. Other than foreshadowing, the scene unites Mildred and Huck in their hatred of the vicious cruelty of the unwell. She offers the private dick what would be $3 million in 2020 money to kill him and then we learn her son has amputated arms and legs. She’s totally ending up boiled, right? Cartwright (Annie Starke), who appears not to be responding to her lobotomy. Hanover. Charles? In the weirdest scene of the season so far, Ratched and Charles engage in a kinky bit of role-playing in her motel room. The final stretch of the episode returns to Hanover, who was nearly killed early on by a deeply incompetent Wainwright — his best strategy is just to open fire outside a gas station? She doesn’t like sinners. Extra Dosage

• Murphy hands off directing duties for this episode to his regular collaborator Nelson Cragg, a cinematographer on a bunch of Murphy-verse series, and it’s hardly noticeable. — and discovers that Nurse Bucket and others are naturally wondering where that patient Ratched had talked into killing himself ended up. Murphy has stumbled tonally before with stuff like this. • Back to the fun stuff! Let’s hope he doesn’t here. “Angel of Mercy” starts by spotlighting what is arguably the show’s greatest asset: its production design. “Angel of Mercy” allows for a bit of development for Briggs, who, it turns out, has been living a marriage of convenience for years with a gay partner. VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! It’s called hydrotherapy, and it naturally offends both Mildred and Huck, even as Bucket pushes their concerns away. Take the mansion of Ms. What will she do with it? Osgood, who prowls a home of high-priced art and objects as only Sharon Stone can. Mildred Ratched has had arguably the lowest amount of character development of the major characters and is essentially the same person as in her first scene, other than, perhaps, in coming to terms with her sexuality. As she fantasizes about the injured man, the soldier in her fantasy turns into Briggs, startling Ratched, who may not understand her own sexuality. Charles gets the job done before saying, “You were the worst lay of my whole life, and this is too fucking weird.” The list of people Nurse Ratched may end up killing before the season ends continues to rise. That could matter down the road. Ratched just looks incredible. Ratched saves Hanover, and the two drive down the shore to Monterey, where his past with Osgood’s son is revealed. The similarities in concept are too much for it not to, especially the manner in which Ryan Murphy likes to blend body horror and sexuality. The subplot in “Angel of Mercy,” revealing that Dr. Who’s going to die first? While she’s explaining the scenario, the show flashes back to what looks like something that really happened to Ratched while she was serving as a nurse in WWII, a moment when she had to amputate the leg of an injured soldier. The treatment involves basically boiling the patient alive and then throwing her into a vat of ice after. Why Ratched would pull this moment out of her memory banks to turn herself on isn’t exactly clear. LSD. Bucket? And kind of an attitude problem. Hanover participated in LSD treatments that led to multiple amputations of his patient, is straight out of Asylum and grisly in ways only Murphy projects can be. Hanover is too messed up to stop any of it and even tries to sew the arms back on after he wakes up a bit. While the climax makes for a very watchable episode of Ratched, the concern at this point in the series lies at its center: The show seems less interested in its title character than in everyone around her. Ratched
Angel of Mercy

Season 1

Episode 3

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

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Photo: SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX

It was inevitable that Ratched would have scenes and subplots that feel like deleted bits from American Horror Story: Asylum. Terms & Privacy Notice
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. Does she get aroused by saving the wounded and injured, even in ways that would devastate both people? Huck? Then they go on a really bad trip that ends with Henry becoming convinced that he has someone else’s arms … so he cuts off his and then cuts off the gardener’s limbs to replace them. She climbed the political ladder; he was made partner at work. And it’s going to be a hot one. Tags: Uh-oh, Dolly. He tells Dolly that a side effect of his medicine is a three-day erection, and she “treats” it, giving him a hand job through the bars while he grunts in her face. Not sure about the science there, doc. This is going to get wild. It feels like this first season could end in a bloodbath. • Speaking of those, this show has been advertised as relating “the creation of a monster.” Does anyone feel it’s doing that yet? Nurse Ratched ushers Cartwright into the basement of the facility with her colleague Huck (Charlie Carver), where Nurse Bucket awaits. She takes Edmund his meal, and he’s thrilled to see someone new, young, and pretty. Hanover’s treatment idea? (It’s almost hard to believe this wasn’t part of Asylum.) Henry was becoming more and more violent — he even stabbed the gardener! Briggs also gets a scene with the governor, who affirms that he wants Edmund “the Clergy Killer” Tolleson to be put to death for his crimes. Not bad for tracking down a guy kind of hiding in plain sight. Osgood is visited by Corey Stoll’s Charles Wainwright, and it’s revealed that Ratched’s neighbor at the motel is a PI who has been hired to find her new boss, Dr. Is it part of her savior complex? It’s very Murphy. It could be a major problem for the back half of this show if the reason Ratched becomes a “monster” is because she realizes she’s a lesbian. Murphy explores the history of American homophobia more intensely with each passing year, most recently in 2020’s Emmy-nominated Hollywood, and Cynthia Nixon is very good in these scenes, but it’s still hard to figure out exactly why she’s drawn to Mildred. It turns out Hanover had been hired to treat Henry Osgood (Brandon Flynn) for something called piquerism, a real condition in which people gain sexual gratification by pricking people with needles. Importantly, the guard who watches it all happen tells Huck, who tells Ratched. This guy is full of bad ideas, and it gets worse when Henry puts a high dosage of the drug in the doctor’s drink, too. Strap in. That could be a problem because of how much Hanover wants to prove he can fix Edmund and even how much a nurse named Dolly (Alice Englert) wants to, well, fix him in her own way.

But he knows his way around actors, and the performances almost get us there. This is, what, the first third of this 138-minute film? The cast is largely foreign — Brits and Swedes and Aussies doing accents — but there’s a delicacy to their portrayals of these lost, corrupted, backwoods souls, from Skarsgård’s emotionally wounded veteran to Clarke’s psychologically gnarled serial killer. For all the depravity on display, there’s a coolness to Campos’s direction and a dutiful quality to his storytelling, perhaps because he’s got so much plot to gallop through and so many characters to torture. Might the sadism have been mitigated — or made, well, interesting — if there was more to this universe? He falls for Charlotte, whom he will one day marry. Perhaps it might have breathed had we been given the chance to lose ourselves a little in this world and its rituals, instead of rushing through it. (Campos has always been a masterful director of actors: His marvelous first feature, Afterschool, introduced us to a young Ezra Miller; his second, Simon Killer, featured two stunning lead turns from future filmmakers Brady Corbet and Mati Diop.)

So the problem with The Devil All the Time isn’t a lack of competence or even really vision. The best of the bunch is Holland (the closest thing the film has to a protagonist), who lets innocence and rage dance on the volatile young Arvin’s face in equal measure — eyes watchful, mouth pursed — which makes some sense, as he is the one character with a chance to break the cycle of violence, even as he also seems well poised to perpetuate it. Before Willard returns home to West Virginia, he stops off at a diner in small-town Ohio (carrying with him the pistol with which, he claims with a smirk, Hitler took his own life) and meets two lovely young waitresses: Charlotte (Haley Bennett) and Sandy (Riley Keough). Evil is a poison that seeps into everyone’s lives here to varying degrees, be it through pious zeal or perversion or (in the case of Robert Pattinson’s dandyish Reverend Preston Teagardin, who shows up just in time to send things spiraling in even more unfortunate directions) both. Some sense of atmosphere, or grace, or joy? Well, he ran into Carl and Sandy.)

Got all that? Choose Your Own Adventure, but for generational trauma. They’re paper fish in a cardboard barrel. She dies anyway, and then he takes his own life, and their already troubled son, Arvin (played as a young adult by Tom Holland), is sent to live with his grandparents, who have also taken in Lenora Laferty (soon to be played by Eliza Scanlen), whose own parents went missing after her crazed preacher father, Roy (Harry Melling), convinced that God and a spider bite had given him the power of resurrection, stabbed his wife, Helen (Mia Wasikowska), in the neck and then, uh, failed to bring her back to life. Antonio Campos’s The Devil All the Time, adapted from the novel by Donald Ray Pollock, is such a relentless and ornate syllabus of cruelty and misery that you might find yourself wondering if it’s partly a game: Choose Your Own Adventure, but for generational trauma. Nobody is spared from the endless vortex of brutality and lunacy, and, of course, neither is the audience. Photo: Glen Wilson/Netflix

Emphasis on all, I guess. Meanwhile, Willard and Charlotte start a family, she gets terminal cancer, and he, in a religious daze, sacrifices the family dog in an effort to convince God to spare her. Southern Gothic promises immersion and dreamy indulgence, but The Devil All the Time is an antiseptic slog, too streamlined to make us care and too literal-minded to pull us in. More Movie Reviews

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Tags: (What happened to Roy after that? Consider: It starts off with Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård) on the Japanese front in WWII, coming upon the nightmarish sight of an American officer who’s been scalped and crucified on the battlefield. We never really get to know any of these characters aside from their villainy and/or victimhood. Sandy makes eyes at him, but then the waitresses switch spots and Sandy winds up running into Carl Henderson (Jason Clarke), whom she will marry; together, they will drive through the countryside picking up strangers, forcing them to have sex with Sandy on-camera and then murdering them. Snippets of narration, read by author Pollock himself (who is actually from the evocatively named town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, where much of the film takes place), attempt to give the proceedings the quality of a mournful and baroque yarn, but they’re not enough, and the picture never really coheres as a tale; it feels more like a checklist. And yet we feel nothing. The litany of awfulness is surely not entirely pointless or even really a miscalculation.

I’ll add, for the record, that it would be lovely to watch national treasure Ted Danson give a Zoom acceptance speech for his unceasingly delightful portrayal of Michael on The Good Place. This is also the only nominated series that taught (some) viewers about a significant and forgotten piece of history: the Tulsa massacre and the destruction of Black Wall Street. Get ready for the Emmy Awards, a.k.a. The show has earned a lot of fans over its six seasons, and this is the last opportunity to reward its long-beloved stars as well as its admirable climb from niche Pop TV show to genuine hit (thanks, Netflix). Maisel (Amazon)Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live (NBC)Annie Murphy, Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)Cecily Strong, Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Here’s where I’m having a hard time making a call. I’m going to go with Drag Race, which has already cleaned up in the Creative Arts categories, while adding that I would be very happy to see Nailed It! Maisel (Amazon)The Kominsky Method  (Netflix)Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

The prevailing wisdom among the experts at Gold Derby, including myself, is that Schitt’s Creek will win. King can’t lose. He was oily and charming at the same time, and he stole every scene into which his character elegantly slid. Will win: Mark Ruffalo, I Know This Much Is True

Should win: Hugh Jackman, Bad Education

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Cate Blanchett, Mrs. That said, I’m sticking with my first guess. This is no dig at Parsons, but I have to think (hope?) voters will look at a field that is dominated by Black actors, a rare occurrence, all of whom gave excellent performances this year, and see the fault in that logic. Maisel

Should win: Betty Gilpin, GLOW

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

Nicholas Braun, Succession (HBO)Billy Crudup, The Morning Show (Apple TV+)Kieran Culkin, Succession (HBO)Mark Duplass, The Morning Show (Apple TV+)Giancarlo Esposito, Better Call Saul (AMC)Matthew Macfadyen, Succession (HBO)Bradley Whitford, The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)Jeffrey Wright, Westworld (HBO)

The thing about Billy Crudup on The Morning Show was that I never knew what was going to come out of his mouth or whether his character, Cory Ellison, could be trusted or should be avoided at all costs. It’s also possible that all the Watchmen contenders will cancel one another out and Tituss Burgess will finally win for his work on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt after being nominated four times previously without a victory. It’s the most nominated series this year, with 26 nods, and it was superbly executed on every technical and creative level. America (Hulu)Kaitlyn Dever, Unbelievable (Netflix)Shira Haas, Unorthodox (Netflix)Regina King, Watchmen (HBO)Kerry Washington, Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu)

In any other year, Cate Blanchett would be a shoo-in. America nominees, which is why I think they may go another way entirely and choose either Toni Collette, who is phenomenal in Unbelievable, or Jean Smart, who is so utterly allergic to b.s. the Watchmen Awards. Sure. There’s a chance Trevor Noah’s Daily Show will break the streak, but honestly, I expect the voters to check the John Oliver box yet again. Will win: Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. The Mandalorian has already won several technical Emmys, but my gut tells me this prize is going to Succession. That’s true too of Ozark’s “Fire Pink.” But I have to think this one will go to the Succession season-two finale, whose twist packed a real wallop. Will win: Succession, “This Is Not for Tears,” Jesse Armstrong

Should win: Succession, “This Is Not for Tears,” Jesse Armstrong; or Better Call Saul, “Bad Choice Road,” Thomas Schnauz

Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special

Mrs. But I also have to think the show can’t win in every single category. (Netflix)RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1)Top Chef (Bravo)The Voice (NBC)

The smart thing to do here is bet on either RuPaul’s Drag Race, which has won for the past two years, or The Voice, which has four Emmys in this category. the Reverend

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Uzo Aduba, Mrs. Outstanding Drama Series

Better Call Saul (AMC)The Crown (Netflix)The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)Killing Eve (BBC America)The Mandalorian (Disney+)Ozark  (Netflix)Stranger Things (Netflix)Succession (HBO)

Succession and Ozark each earned 18 nominations this year, which indicates there’s a lot of love in the Television Academy for both series. Maisel (Amazon)Kenan Thompson, Saturday Night Live (NBC)

In keeping with my Schitt’s sweep theory, I’m going with Daniel Levy here, who also created the series and gave his character, David, so much perpetually aghast energy. I suspect voters will feel the same way, even though several of these performances are very worthy (love you, Cousin Greg!). I still can’t totally decide, so I’m going with MC L to the OG, who went from desperate seeker of Daddy’s affection to absolute iceman in this season of Succession. Did any other show this year use the phrase “Take it sleazy” in a way that made you cry? Will win: Succession (or maybe Ozark)

Should win: Succession. Maisel (Amazon)Linda Cardellini, Dead to Me (Netflix)Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)Issa Rae, Insecure (HBO)Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish (ABC)

Of all the nominated Schitt’s Creek actors, I feel most confident in a win for Catherine O’Hara, who invented a whole new way of speaking English with her portrayal of Moira Rose. I’m kinda fine with that, especially since an Emmy win for that series is a win for the song “Eat Shit, Bob,” which was also nominated this year in the Original Music category but lost to Euphoria. America, “Shirley,” Tanya BarfieldNormal People, Episode 3, Sally Rooney and Alice BirchUnbelievable, Episode 1, Susannah Grant, Michael Chabon, and Ayelet WaldmanUnorthodox, “Part 1,” Anna WingerWatchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson

All of these episodes represent truly excellent work — I really do wish all of these shows could win at least one Emmy — but again, “This Extraordinary Being” was so extraordinary I don’t see how voters can’t give it an Emmy for its writing. It also could go to Jennifer Aniston for her confident return to scripted television in The Morning Show. Maisel so far, and I suspect she will again; people in Hollywood love a shit-talking, loyal agent. Will win: Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek

Should win: Ted Danson, The Good Place

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy

Christina Applegate, Dead to Me (Netflix)Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “It’s Comedy or Cabbage,” Amy Sherman-Palladino

Should win: The Marvelous Mrs. A win for The Crown, which has never won the Emmy in this category, isn’t out of the realm, either. Will win: Schitt’s Creek

Should win: Insecure or The Good Place

Outstanding Limited Series

Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu)Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)William Jackson Harper, The Good Place (NBC)Daniel Levy, Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. (ABC)Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)Late Night With Stephen Colbert (CBS)

Yeah, it’s become a bit repetitive to see Last Week Tonight win in this category every single year. win, partly to mix things up and partly because there’s so much joy in its celebration of epic fails. Maisel, “It’s Comedy or Cabbage,” Amy Sherman-Palladino

Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series

The Crown, “Aberfan,” Benjamin CaronThe Crown, “Cri de Coeur,” Jessica HobbsHomeland, “Prisoners of War,” Leslie Linka GlatterThe Morning Show, “The Interview,” Mimi LederOzark, “Fire Pink,” Alik SakharovOzark, “Su Casa Es Mi Casa,” Ben SemanoffSuccession, “Hunting,” Andrij ParekhSuccession, “This Is Not for Tears,” Mark Mylod

“This Is Not for Tears” is amazing, but “Aberfan,” The Crown episode about the coal avalanche that killed hundreds of children in an English village, was incredibly ambitious in scope and heartbreaking to watch. Annie Murphy could very well win if the Schitt’s Creek love is (sorry) overflowing. Will win: Billy Crudup, The Morning Show

Should win: Billy Crudup, The Morning Show

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

Helena Bonham Carter, The Crown (Netflix)Laura Dern, Big Little Lies (HBO)Julia Garner, Ozark (Netflix)Thandie Newton, Westworld (HBO)Fiona Shaw, Killing Eve (BBC America)Sarah Snook, Succession (HBO)Meryl Streep, Big Little Lies (HBO)Samira Wiley, The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

Just as Olivia Colman did, Helena Bonham Carter took over a role on The Crown that had been more than ably played by another actor (Vanessa Kirby) and managed to make it her own. Maisel, “Marvelous Radio,” Daniel PalladinoThe Marvelous Mrs. So in conclusion, Watchmen. Maisel, “It’s Comedy or Cabbage,” Amy Sherman-PalladinoModern Family, “Finale Part II,” Gail MancusoRamy, “Miakhalifa.mov,” Ramy YoussefSchitt’s Creek, “Happy Ending,” Andrew Cividino and Daniel LevyWill & Grace, “We Love Lucy,” James Burrows

The third season of The Marvelous Mrs. After consulting a Magic 8-Ball and engaging in a couple of coin tosses, I have come up with this list of predicted Emmy winners (hint: Watchmen, Watchmen) and nominees that I’d like to see triumph come Sunday night (again: Watchmen, Watchmen). But Blanchett is up against Regina King, another Oscar (and Emmy) winner in the central superheroic role that gives Watchmen so much of its humanity. She’s an Oscar winner making her television debut in a juicy role as a major, polarizing figure in the women’s-rights movement, Phyllis Schlafly. Alex Borstein has won for every season of Mrs. Season two firmly established the show as a cultural phenomenon and ended with a hell of a finale. I would be thrilled if Betty Gilpin won for GLOW, (a) because she’s terrific in it, and (b) because I am dying to watch her give an acceptance speech from wherever she’s virtually watching the Emmys. Given the racial and social unrest that has erupted in recent months, its subject matter could not be more relevant. Will win: Daniel Levy, Schitt’s Creek

Should win: William Jackson Harper. Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish (ABC)Don Cheadle, Black Monday (Showtime)Ted Danson, The Good Place (NBC)Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method (Netflix)Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)Ramy Youssef, Ramy (Hulu)

In keeping with my assertion that we may be looking at a Schitt’s sweep in the comedy categories, I think Eugene Levy is probably going to win here, though I wouldn’t rule out Ramy Youssef for his introspective performance in Ramy. If a shocking upset happens in this category, it could come via What We Do in the Shadows, which upped its comedy game significantly in season two. Will win: Helena Bonham Carter, The Crown

Should win: Sarah Snook, Succession

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Watchmen (HBO)Jovan Adepo, Watchmen (HBO)Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. No, I didn’t think so. The Outstanding Drama award could go to either of them; both had really strong seasons. Will win: Schitt’s Creek, “Happy Ending,” Daniel Levy

Should win: The Good Place, “Whenever You’re Ready,” Michael Schur

Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series

Better Call Saul, “Bad Choice Road,” Thomas SchnauzBetter Call Saul, “Bagman,” Gordon SmithThe Crown, “Aberfan,” Peter MorganThe Crown, “Cri de Coeur,” Jessica HobbsOzark, “All In,” Chris MundyOzark, “Boss Fight,” John ShibanOzark, “Fire Pink,” Miki JohnsonSuccession, “This Is Not for Tears,” Jesse Armstrong

“Bad Choice Road” is an intense, exceptionally written episode of Better Call Saul. as Laurie Blake. the Reverend (Netflix)Louis Gossett Jr., Watchmen (HBO)Dylan McDermott, Hollywood (Netflix)Jim Parsons, Hollywood (Netflix)

A lot of Emmy pundits are predicting Jim Parsons will win, perhaps because his role in Hollywood was such a departure from Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, a role for which Parsons won four Emmys. But I’m convinced Laura Linney will win this because the episode she submitted, “Fire Pink,” contains some of the most wrenching acting I’ve ever seen her do, and that’s saying something considering we’re talking about Laura Linney. If that happens, I can’t say I’d be mad at it. Maisel (Amazon)D’Arcy Cardin, The Good Place (NBC)Betty Gilpin, GLOW (Netflix)Marin Hinkle, The Marvelous Mrs. Will win: The Marvelous Mrs. America (Hulu)Toni Collette, Unbelievable (Netflix)Margo Martindale, Mrs. Personally, even though I don’t think she has a chance of winning, I have a real affinity for Tracey Ullman’s work as Betty Friedan, which was hilarious and transformative but also gave real dimension to a woman who could easily have been played as a caricature. Emmy voters will likely want to recognize The Crown, and this seems like a logical place to do it. Maisel may have been uneven, but “It’s Comedy or Cabbage,” the episode in which Midge and Lenny Bruce kinda, sorta almost hook up, is perfect and beautifully directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino. I’m looking at Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who had the difficult task of playing a dual role for much of Watchmen without letting on that he was playing a dual role. Could things go a different way? Will win: The Crown, “Aberfan,” Benjamin Caron

Should win: The Crown, “Aberfan,” Benjamin Caron

Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special

Little Fires Everywhere, “Find a Way,” Lynn SheltonNormal People, Episode 5, Lenny AbrahamsonUnorthodox, “Prisoners of War,” Maria SchraderWatchmen, “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice,” Nicole KassellWatchmen, “Little Fear of Lightning,” Steph GreenWatchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Stephen Williams

It would be lovely to see Lynn Shelton posthumously win an Emmy, but I see no way that anything will top the year’s best episode of television, Watchmen’s “This Extraordinary Being.”

Will win: Watchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Stephen Williams

Should win: Watchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Stephen Williams

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series

The Good Place, “Whenever You’re Ready,” Michael SchurThe Great, “The Great” (Pilot), Tony McNamaraSchitt’s Creek, “Happy Ending,” Daniel LevySchitt’s Creek, “The Presidential Suite,” David West ReadWhat We Do in the Shadows, “Collaboration,” Sam Johnson and Chris MarcilWhat We Do in the Shadows, “Ghosts,” Paul SimmsWhat We Do in the Shadows, “On the Run,” Stefani Robinson

The odds seem pretty good for a Schitt’s Creek win on behalf of its wedding finale, but I am pulling for Mike Schur to win for wrapping up the philosophical The Good Place in such a satisfying, smartly written way. Will win: Watchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson

Should win: Watchmen, “This Extraordinary Being,” Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson

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Tags: Brown, This Is Us (NBC)Steve Carell, The Morning Show (Apple TV+)Brian Cox, Succession (HBO)Billy Porter, Pose (FX)Jeremy Strong, Succession (HBO)

I keep waffling between Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong as the likely winner, and that makes me wonder if the Succession stars will cancel each other out, leaving an opening for Billy Porter to win again or perhaps Jason Bateman to take the trophy. Will win: Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek

Should win: Catherine O’Hara or Issa Rae, Insecure

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama

Jason Bateman, Ozark (Netflix)Sterling K. The ceremony, to be broadcast on ABC, will take place in a virtual format, which should add an extra “What’s going to happen?” suspense to the evening. Will win: RuPaul’s Drag Race

Should win: Nailed It! Will win: Jean Smart, Watchmen

Should win: Tracey Ullman, Mrs. America (Hulu)

I don’t know how voters will choose between the three Mrs. I really admired Jackman’s work in Bad Education, though, in which he played an incredibly persuasive fraud. Will win: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Watchmen

Should win: Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. Will win: Jeremy Strong, Succession

Should win: Jeremy Strong, Succession

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama

Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show (Apple TV+)Olivia Colman, The Crown (Netflix)Jodie Comer, Killing Eve (BBC America)Laura Linney, Ozark (Netflix)Sandra Oh, Killing Eve (BBC America)Zendaya, Euphoria (HBO)

Six months ago, I would have said this Emmy was going to Olivia Colman for her natural ability to assume the role of Queen Elizabeth post–Claire Foy. But honestly, some of the categories are so competitive the Emmys don’t need the help. Brown, The Marvelous Mrs. That’s an achievement, and I think voters will recognize that, even though Sarah Snook made such a slick and formidable Ivanka in this season of Succession. Maisel, and it’s possible they could give it a second Best Comedy Emmy. Emmy voters love The Marvelous Mrs. Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. It still may. America (Hulu)Unbelievable (Netflix)Unorthodox (Netflix)Watchmen (HBO)

All these shows are outstanding, but there’s no way Watchmen doesn’t win here. I can’t help it; I just really want Chidi to receive more widespread validation. Will win: Laura Linney, Ozark

Should win: Laura Linney, Ozark

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Jeremy Irons, Watchmen (HBO)Hugh Jackman, Bad Education (HBO)Paul Mescal, Normal People (Hulu)Jeremy Pope, Hollywood (Netflix)Mark Ruffalo, I Know This Much Is True (HBO)

This strikes me as a two-man race between Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Jackman, and since Ruffalo is playing a difficult dual role, he’ll take the prize. Will win: Watchmen

Should win: Watchmen

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (TBS)Jimmy Kimmel Live! America

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series

The Great, “The Great” (Pilot), Matt ShakmanThe Marvelous Mrs. Photo: HBO

Even though this is 2020, the year of postponements and cancellations, the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards will go on as usual this Sunday night. America (Hulu)Jean Smart, Watchmen (HBO)Holland Taylor, Hollywood (Netflix)Tracey Ullman, Mrs. It sure would be nice to see Issa Rae win, though, especially for a season in which her character went through some major transitions. Will win: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

Should win: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

Outstanding Competition Program

The Masked Singer (Fox)Nailed It! Will win: Regina King, Watchmen

Should win: Regina King, Watchmen

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Mahershala Ali, Ramy (Hulu)Alan Arkin, The Kominsky Method (Netflix)Andre Braugher, Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Hulu)Sterling K. (It won two years ago.) Some other nominees are long overdue for an Emmy — like Insecure, which delivered a great, insightful season this year, and another series that recently ended, the fantastic The Good Place. Outstanding Comedy Series

Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)Dead to Me (Netflix)The Good Place (NBC)Insecure (HBO)The Marvelous Mrs.

A post shared by Vulture (@vulture) on Sep 18, 2020 at 10:34am PDT

Thanks to the coronavirus, comedians are now trapped at home like the rest of us, so we decided that while we’re all self-quarantining, we’d do something a little different from our usual “Follow Friday” column. More From This Series

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Tags: She also poured us some tea about an early-aughts reality-TV star who popped up in the almost soft-core-porn vampire B-movie she had a role in: “We shot a scene in my parents’ room … Tila Tequila had a full sex scene in my parents’ bathtub.”

You can find Tamara Yajia on Twitter at @DancesWithTamis and on Instagram at @tamarayajia. Instead of interviewing up-and-coming comedians we love on Twitter, we’re going live on Instagram every week to check in on some of our favorite people in comedy and get a firsthand look into how they’re handling the pandemic. So welcome to our new version of the column, now titled “Follow (From a Safe Distance) Friday.”

This week, I lay glamorously prone with Tamara Yajia (Funny or Die, ClickHole, Argentine child star) and her various beverages for a digital conversation about how she’s keeping it together in quarantine. She detailed her tenure as an 11-year-old child performer in an Ace of Base cover band in Argentina, shared her thoughts on the post-corona future of digital comedy, and told us her favorite QAnon conspiracy theories (a group she is, allegedly, not affiliated with). View this post on Instagram @taylorgarron lounges gracefully with @tamarayajia for a chat about how she’s doing in quar.