Coleman Spilde

Apple TV+When we last left the residents of Deerfield, the fictional Midwest town at the center of the strange occurrences in The Big Door Prize, everyone was zapped of energy—in some cases, quite literally. The Season 1 finale of Apple TV+’s existential comedy ended with a key character in the hospital after being electrocuted while trying to destroy a MORPHO machine, a photo booth-like contraption that tells you your life’s true potential. The rest of Deerfield’s population is just as exhausted (though, luckily, not under medical care) after spending the show’s first season comically upending their comfortable lives because the mysterious MORPHO spat out a little blue card with one vague word printed on it.The results of this small-town chaos yielded one of 2023’s most unexpectedly delightful new series, which had much more to say about adult life and the nuances of our neuroses than a certain sickeningly upbeat Apple TV+ show. Quirky Deerfield dwellers like Dusty (Chris O’Dowd), his plucky wife Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), Cass’ arrogant mother Izzy (Crystal R. Fox), and toupéed restaurateur Giorgio (Josh Segarra) struggled to understand what their MORPHO cards meant, often finding that one word could conjure endless potential outcomes. These bite-sized, intertwining character studies were a novel joy, albeit one that had limits. Even though last season’s finale packed more than a few twists, repeating the same storytelling pattern would create viewer fatigue fast. One can only watch so many scenes of self-discovery before a show starts dipping into sickeningly saccharine Ted Lesso territory.But The Big Door Prize was always smarter than most of its comedy contemporaries. Where Season 1 found unusual ways to balance its philosophical dissections of human life with intelligent, character-driven humor, Season 2—which premieres Apr. 24—expands its reach. The new batch of episodes brings Deerfield’s residents together after spending so much time solo, trying to figure out what their MORPHO cards meant. This season stresses the importance of community when we’re disoriented, and sharply dissects how humans use interpersonal relationships to grow alongside one another. It’s another blissful, perfectly paced 10 episodes that hit the hardest when you least expect them to, the kind of television that insists upon the intelligence of its viewer, rather than itself.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Darko Sikman / HuluTeenagers are horrific—that much, we know. They’re a tornado of hormones, pheromones, acne, adolescence, mood swings, and frankly, bad taste. But, at least most of the time, teens are pretty harmless; most of the ones that I’ve met are too busy scrolling TikTok with the volume on its highest setting to be concerned with the matters of popularity and superficial beauty that preoccupied young people 20 years ago. (Unless you don’t have a different color Stanley cup for every day of the school week, in which case, you’re basically a microorganism in the eyes of the average teen.)But things were different in 1997. Popularity was defined by who had the new Biggie CD and whose parents had the most money. Growing up in the ’90s was brutal, and that all-consuming—and all-too-familiar—ferocity is on vivid display in Under the Bridge, Hulu’s new limited series premiering April 17. The show, based on author Rebecca Godfrey’s 2005 book retelling of the events, dramatizes the real story of a brutal crime that happened in fall 1997, one that captivated a sleepy Canadian province and ignited a firestorm of media attention that was laser-focused on the adolescents at the center of it all. And though its two adult lead actors, Riley Keough and Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone, are certainly compelling as the two adult women wrapped up in the investigation, it’s the teen actors who run away with the series. They give the show an unnerving, deeply gut-wrenching sense of volatility and violence, one which makes Under the Bridge almost impossible to look away from.In November 1997, the body of 14-year-old Reena Virk (played in the show by Vritika Gupta) was found on the shore of Gorge Inlet in Saanich, British Columbia. The chaos that followed was unlike anything that the population of the greater area of Victoria, British Columbia had ever seen before. “The story would haunt the island for years to come,” Rebecca Godfrey (Keough) says in a voiceover in the opening moments of the premiere. “It forever changed a fact that once seemed so immutable, so fundamental: Young girls in Victoria we were supposed to protect, not be protected from.” This sentiment initially feels melodramatic and paranoid, perhaps even a bit prosaic. But that seems intentional, given that it reflects how Godfrey writes the firsthand accounts in her book, in which Godfrey details her time visiting Victoria as an adult. She returned to the city, where she grew up, to write a book reminiscing on its singular youth culture. Little did Godfrey know that she would be stumbling into a harrowing crime, already in progress.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/Searchlight PicturesThere are few distinctly human biological experiences more frustrating than wanting to cry but being unable to make the tears flow. We can feel the sadness in the core of our being, and our minds are trapped in the dense, impenetrable fog of our feelings, tumbling around our brains like a sneaker in the dryer. And yet, the tears just will not fall. If you’re like me, you remedy this nagging sensation by putting on your noise-canceling headphones, drawing the curtains, and pressing play on “Fingertips” by Lana Del Rey. The crying begins, the catharsis takes hold, and it becomes almost too easy to sit and stew in that all-consuming grief. Sitting in this sadness can be such a relief that we start to crave it.Lucy Boynton, star of The Greatest Hits—a new romantic drama streaming on Hulu now—understands this all too well. “I’ve become much more mindful of not wallowing [in the way music makes me feel],” Boynton told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed in a recent interview. The effect of music on her mood is something that she says she’s noticed much more often after wrapping this film, which is all about the power that music has to sway our emotions—whether in a positive or negative direction, or some volatile space in the middle.In the film, a young woman named Harriet (Boynton) is stuck in her grief over her boyfriend Max (David Corenswet), whom she lost two years prior in a tragic car accident. Amidst her anguish, Harriet discovers that she can briefly time-travel back to moments that she and Max shared whenever she hears a song that was playing when they were together. This could easily be a corny gimmick for the film to hook itself onto, but instead, The Greatest Hits conjures plenty of emotional resonance by exploring how deeply humans tie music to their experiences, and how it impacts our ability to feel and to grieve.Read more at The Daily Beast.

StarzNow that Mary & George has set the scene for Mary Villiers’ loathsome exploits in its dastardly premiere, the show can start getting truly down and dirty, coating itself in the muck of royal revelry. In the limited series’ second episode, Julianne Moore’s Mary is coaxing the favor of not just King James I for her son George (Nicholas Galitzine), but also of a potential wife for her troubled first-born child John (Tom Victor). John’s violent impulses could spell trouble for Mary and George’s larger plans with the king, so it’s in her best interests to marry him off and put him out of mind.But that’s far easier said than done once a slew of new enemies step in to block her path. Oh, well! She’ll just throw them onto her ever-growing list of adversaries. Episode 2 shows us that there is no danger or foe that Mary is incapable of staring down with a steadfast glare and a smirk.In 1615, about a year or so after George first met King James (and almost lost his hand for a violent outburst that followed), Mary ventures to a brothel, where she meets a young prostitute Sandie (Niamh Algar), who propositions her for sex. “Why pay for a fruit so easy to pluck?” Mary asks Sandie. “I say you need something, love,” Sandie says, eyeing Mary up beyond just what Sandie can see of Mary on the surface. “I’ve seen enough half-souls in my days, worn down by mistress time, those who never feel full of heart. And, I see you.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

MGMThe orgasmic groaning and grunting are part of tennis’ appeal. They reflect the intensity of the sport: how hard players have to hit the ball; how fast they have to dash from one end of the court to the other; how carefully they have to avoid slipping on their own sweat, dripping off their body and onto the ground in the punishing heat of the sun. Just making contact between the ball and racket is enough primal satisfaction to rival any roll in the hay. A loud, irrepressible moan serves the same purpose in tennis as it does in sex. The noise is both a gasp of pleasure and a way to catch your breath to ensure the experience lasts as long as it can.There is plenty of this rapture in Challengers, both on and off the court. Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, in theaters Apr. 26, is a fluid, psychosexual heater paced as fast and as thrilling as any tennis tournament. Drama is spiked across the net and volleyed back and forth between the movie’s three players in a fiery match with everything at stake. In the film, tennis is very much a three-person sport, and every new serve feels like it’s for the match point. Advantage oscillates between a different person with each scene. Heat swells, tensions flare, and skin is slick with perspiration, but fatigue never once sets in—for the characters or the audience.Energy is what tennis demands, and Challengers has it in droves. Justin Kuritzkes’ screenplay is a dynamic exploration of passion that puts its central trio of young tennis prodigies under Guadagnino’s finely focused microscope. Co-stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist flit about, finding new ways to push and pull each other across 13 years of contorted friendship and estranged relationships, hurtling toward one big reunion that will dictate their shared pasts and uncertain futures. It’s a boisterous ride, and though it’s never quite as nasty and deceitful as it initially purports, the film gets its kicks from the rush of the larger game, not just from its players’ moves. The precise calculation is exhilarating, and Challengers is an exemplary model of just how much breathless action three people can conjure with the love of their game on the line.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Warner Bros.Fine, I’ll admit it: I was dead wrong.Let me clarify. There was a time, not too long ago, when Lady Gaga signing onto a Joker sequel was unfathomable. Years of fighting to prove her talent and worth to the general public culminated in the musician and actor being nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in 2018’s A Star Is Born. (It was a nomination she lost, only to pick up the Best Original Song trophy later that evening.) After Gaga’s silver screen follow-up, House of Gucci, turned out to be a less-than-ideal vehicle for her star power, joining another big Hollywood production could be a risk. And when rumors about her joining the sequel to 2019’s controversial standalone Joker film began to swirl, many people–including myself—thought Gaga’s participation was incomprehensible. It was so strange and unlikely to me that I even wrote an open letter back in 2022, half-jokingly begging her not to take the role. With the amount of contention surrounding the first Joker film, it seemed unwise for Gaga to associate herself with the franchise.But time is a funny thing. In the two years since it was announced Gaga would join Phoenix in the Joker sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, Gaga has done quite a few things I wouldn’t have expected. The first and foremost would be teaming up with pharmaceutical overlords Pfizer to hock migraine pills, which I used to think was something relegated to Khloé Kardashian. Gaga, ever the LGBTQ+ activist, also spent most of last summer quiet after a season of legislative attacks on trans and gender nonconforming people put the health and safety of the queer community at jeopardy—a silence she later (vaguely) apologized for. While these haven’t been my favorite surprises that Gaga has pulled on the public in her long career, she certainly keeps us on her toes. That much has once again been proven too with the release of the first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux. I’ll say it because I mean it: This movie looks really damn good.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/StarzAs light and fun as it can be, Mary & George begins with a thud. The first episode of Starz’s scintillating new limited series about Jacobean-era English schemers—led by Julianne Moore as Countess of Buckingham Mary Villiers and Nicholas Galitzine as her second son, George—opens by dropping poor baby George, fresh from the womb, onto the floor. “Who dropped him?” Mary asks her two chambermaids. She’s not expecting a reply; she’s expecting them to pick him up. George is, after all, still attached to his mother by umbilical cord, and Mary does not suffer incompetence, as we’ll soon come to learn.Things don’t bode well for poor George from the start. There’s a reason that Mary is less incensed by her staff’s mistake than she is purely annoyed. “Perhaps they should’ve left you on the floor to rot,” she whispers to George, cradled in her arms once more. “Do you know why? You are my second son. You will inherit nothing of value. What use are you to anybody?” It’s a tough sentiment—the kid’s still covered in bodily fluids, and already he’s getting a lecture from his mother—but not exactly an untrue one. During this period in English history, family and bloodlines were everything; if you were not a daughter who could marry into a wealthy brood, or the first-born son who would inherit a family’s estate, there was little intrinsic worth to your mere existence.That’s the spirit that drives Mary and the worry that nips at her back everywhere she goes. After narrowly escaping a lowly destiny of her own, she’s desperate to make sure that she never returns to that status. She’ll do anything to secure her family’s name in good social standing, but with her first son, John (Tom Victor), growing more violent and troubled, her prospects don’t look good. That is, until the opportunity to pimp George out to England’s King James I arises, and it’s a chance that Mary can’t possibly pass up. While George is less hasty to be objectified, this reluctance creates a push-pull dynamic that Mary & George lays its groundwork upon in its excellent premiere, with plenty of nasty schemes and sex to build upon by the first installment’s end.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Eric Leibowitz / FXSiobhan, Siobhan, wherefore art thou, Siobhan?When we last left Kim Kardashian’s dubiously named American Horror Story: Delicate character, Siobhan Corbyn—a high-powered publicist working to make actress Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts) the hottest celeb in the world—things had just taken a turn for the grisly. One of Siobhan’s other clients, a young, crimson-haired ingénue named Babette, had been decapitated.Naturally, this freak accident occurred after Anna received a mysterious phone call from Siobhan, following the Golden Globes ceremony where Anna lost her nomination to Babette. “Do you want an Oscar, do you want it as much as a baby?” Siobhan asked the pregnant Anna, whose gestation had been troubling Anna (to put it mildly). Sensing some dark machinations from her Armenian-Irish publicist that may work in her favor, Anna basically said, “Fuck it,” and told Siobhan, “Yes.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Alyssa Moran / AMCThere are countless upsides to never seeing a single episode of Breaking Bad.For one, I get to tune out of those “best television shows of all time” conversations that people have at parties whenever they get to the Walter White of it all, and instead, ponder whether I’m responsible enough to invest in a large plant. Other times, I have the privilege of never having to care about what’s going on with Aaron Paul’s career. But the best part of not giving a single hoot about the meth show—or its spinoff, Better Call Saul—is that I have been able to avoid unconsciously pigeonholing Giancarlo Esposito. If I wasn’t able to see one of America’s finest character actors as anyone but Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul’s Gus Fring, I simply don’t know what I’d do.That reality would be a frustrating one, given that Esposito has been popping up everywhere lately. After a stint on The Mandalorian, major parts in two recent Netflix series (of varying quality), and some excellent voice work on Max’s animated Harley Quinn, Esposito is returning to the network that made him a notable face. His latest drama, Parish—which begins airing Mar. 31 on AMC—is a moderately gripping thriller that works best when it keeps the focus on its star. Esposito’s charm and verve help the six-episode season move at a crackling pace, which comes to a noticeable halt whenever he’s not on-screen. While those looking for Breaking Bad-level excitement from Esposito won’t be disappointed, anyone seeking a wholly impressive crime story will be let down by Parish’s imbalanced action.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty“Obviously no added sugar.” That phrase, printed on the box for Kylie Jenner’s new brand of canned vodka sodas, Sprinter, perplexed me. Obviously no added sugar? First of all, Ms. Jenner, do not assume you know what I am thinking. Being spoken to as if I am a child makes me irate; I worked hard for these forehead lines and dark circles! Sure, I may have a stunning, youthful glow despite them, but that doesn’t mean I deserve to be scolded for a conclusion I haven’t even made in the first place. I picked up this crate of eight canned vodka sodas two seconds ago, and already I’m getting a playful slap on the wrist? If it weren’t my job to taste these things, the box would’ve gone back on the shelf.Alright, that’s a lie. I have been dying to get my hands on some Sprinters since Jenner announced the brand earlier this month. If there is one thing I’ve always admired about the Kardashian-Jenner oligarchs, it’s their keen eyes for branding. Whether the products they make are good is of…some concern to me, of course—look at the article you’re reading!—but I’m far more fascinated by how those things will be marketed. Take, for instance, Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS shapewear and undergarment brand: I don’t wear shapewear, but if I did, I’d be inclined to buy it from the woman who made a cheeky, irreverent ad about some of her bras having visibly protruding nipples.I love the textured glass bottles of Kourtney Kardashian’s line of supplements and vitamins. I adore the fact that Khloé Kardashian had to incorporate her denim line (that is definitely not a money laundering front) into an ad she did for migraine pills. I worship the ghastly label of Kendall Jenner’s equally frightful tequila, simply because the design is so memorable. Whether the Kardashians and Jenners could be considered “artists” in the traditional sense is up for heavy debate, but they are certainly sculptors of their own relevancy. Fame is an art form, just like painting, music, or, well, I suppose even writing. I’ll have to delicately caress my reflection in a mirror to process that, but I’ll do it later.Read more at The Daily Beast.