TV & Movies

📺 Yellowjackets: Lately, my evening routine has revolved around episodes of Yellowjackets, the drama/thriller/dark humor TV show about a high school girls' soccer team whose plane crashed in the wilderness in 1996. It’s 25 years later, and the survivors are grappling with mid-life crises and the aftermath of their traumatic experiences, plus a suspicious death and blackmail threats. The show premiered in 2021, and two seasons are available, with a third in production. While the storyline is preposterous, the suspense (did they eat each other?!) and flashbacks to the 90s, featuring perfectly calibrated musical and cultural references, have me firmly in its grips.

📺 Nobody Wants This: This Netflix series was exactly the romantic sitcom I was in the mood to binge on a weekend when Jim was out of town recently. Adam Brody is a mensch, playing perfect boyfriend material (who also happens to be a Rabbi), who falls in love with a foul-mouthed, atheist podcaster, played by Kristen Bell. The two leads are excellent as a couple grappling with their central conflict: a Rabbi cannot marry a non-Jew. The supporting cast, which includes Timothy Simons (Jonah from Veep), comedian Sherry Cola (Joy Ride), and Justine Lupe (Connor’s wife in Succession) bring the funniest laughs; and while the show has been criticized for portraying Jewish women in an unnuanced and negative way, it’s a fun, lighthearted, easy watch. And that’s not so easy to find these days.

📺 Slow Horses: Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas are back as warring (and comically snide) British intelligence agents, working to save the United Kingdom from attack. My husband, Jim, and I love this show, which pits the underdogs of MI5, known as the “Slow Horses,” against the better-funded flagship “Dogs.” Gary Oldman’s character, Jackson Lamb, is slovenly and rude but, despite it all, brilliant and oddly lovable. We love cheering him and his cast of misfit spies on as they attempt to save the day—and themselves.

📺 Colin From Accounts: the second season of my favorite Aussie sitcom is here! This show is written by a real-life couple who also play the lead roles, and it excels at both exposing and finding the hilarity in the everyday awkwardness of relationships between friends, family members, colleagues, and complete strangers. The humor can be bawdy, and the language is not clean, and I laugh out loud multiple times per episode. Jim loves it as much as I do, which is no easy feat!

📺 Bad Monkey: Vince Vaughn stars in this adaptation of a bestselling Carl Hiaasen comedic mystery/detective novel about a down-on-his-luck police officer, a severed arm that washes up at sea, and a real estate development in the Bahamas. Full disclosure: I’ve only watched one episode, but given the current lack of quality TV options, I’m committed to enjoying this caper featuring Vaughn’s signature fast-talking humor, the cast of wacky characters played by an excellent supporting cast, and the laid-back Florida vibes. Bonus: this show is definitely fun to watch as a couple!

Books

📖 The Sequel: I could not put down Jean Hanff Korelitz’s latest novel, the sequel to her blockbuster, The Plot, one of my favorite books in recent years. Like The Plot, The Sequel cleverly skewers the literary world while weaving a fast-moving, dark and twisty story focused on Anna Williams-Bonner, widow of Jake, the hapless protagonist of The Plot. It is hard to describe The Sequel without giving away too many spoilers, so I will just say: if you haven’t read The Plot, do so immediately, then follow it up with The Sequel. If you have read The Plot, you will love this! A fun, clever detail: each of the chapters in The Sequel are named for books that were sequels to other well-known books.

📖 What Does It Feel Like?: Sophie Kinsella, best-selling author of the Shopaholic series, and 33 novels in total, was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor in 2022, and in this book (technically a novel) she writes about her experience. It’s a short, poignant story that illustrates the dismay, shock, and grief Kinsella and her family go through as she receives and shares her diagnosis and recovers from surgery, re-learns how to walk, regains her memory, and grapples with the knowledge that her cancer is terminal. While the book is heartwrenching, it’s also ultimately hopeful, as Kinsella’s character, Eve, describes how she wants to live what’s left of her life. “Normal Plus” is the term she uses for living an upgraded version of the everyday life she loves: buying more expensive tickets to see a movie with her husband, eating exotic snacks while watching her favorite TV show, and spending time having fun with her children and friends.

📖 All Fours: I was prepared not to like this novel because reviews led me to believe it was simply about a woman gratuitously cheating on her husband. It both is, and isn’t that, and so much more. Author Miranda July explores all the topics central to midlife and women in this novel, which is loosely based on her own experience: parenting, marriage, creative freedom, ambition, friendship, and the physical and emotional changes wrought by menopause. My favorite parts of the book were when she canvased other women for their views on these topics—I had the sense I had access to others’ most intimate thoughts, and I was left wanting more. If you feel the same way, you might enjoy this podcast conversation between Miranda July and Esther Perel.