Everything we canât stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
[Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we canât stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
This week: - Bemoaning the worst character on TV.
- Why everyone is obsessed with Yellowjackets.
- The life-affirming Elmo vs. Rocco feud.
- The one-year anniversary of E! covering the insurrection.
- The new gay agenda. Even I Canât Get Over How Bad Che Diaz Is My therapist said that Che Diaz canât hurt me. Still, I couldnât help but wonder, how long will it take for these scars, this trauma inflicted by the indisputable worst character on television, to heal? I am an [And Just Like That⦠apologist](. Yes, there are moments of HBO Maxâs Sex and the City sequel series that are [absolutely mortifying to watch](, but I find there to be some versimilitude to that. Thereâs no way [these characters]( would adapt to a new generation and era of social mores without teetering in their stilettos trying to navigate things. Is that different from the aspirational and sexy vibes of the original SATC? Of course. But in a [great piece for Vox this week](, writer Alex Abad-Santos underscored how that might be the point. The series âfinds the demented comedy in lifeâs humiliations,â he writes. The reboot âisnât just about being fabulous. Itâs about reckoning with your obsolescence.â Be that as it may, the series is nothing if not polarizing. For everyone delighting in the indefatigable charms of Sarah Jessica Parker each week, there are those who seem to be personally offended by the seriesâ lapse in quality. (I think itâs gotten better and better each week.) On the other hand, The New Yorkerâs Emily Nussbaum, who is an [authority on the legacy]( of the original series, [tweeted](, âOk, I gave this SATC sequel 5.5 eps. Iâm out. Itâs not fun-bad, itâs just bad.â Yet in these divisive timesâin all things related to Carrie Bradshaw or otherwiseâthere is comfort in knowing that there is one thing that seems to have united us all: A passionate hatred for the Che Diaz character on And Just Like That⦠There is no exaggerating how insufferable this character is. To call them unwatchable is not hyperbole. âCringingâ is not a strong enough verb to describe what the body reflexively does when they are on screen, like a physical defense mechanism. Itâs more like an elaborate tuck and roll off the couch followed by an army crawl to hide under the bed before letting out a high-pitched scream of âNo!â like the one I learned to do from Oprah during an episode of her talk show on how to protect yourself from being abducted. Che, played by Greyâs Anatomy alum Sara Ramirez, is one of the new characters added to the series in a woke panic, meant to address the [original runâs cardinal sin]( of unforgivable whitenessâa lack of diversity that would of course need to be rectified in any sort of reboot or revival. Several of these characters are truly captivating; Iâm loving the friendship being formed between Carrie and Sarita Choudhuryâs Seema Patel, a dynamic that is starting to fill the void of the Carrie-Samantha friendship, if not necessarily the unapologetic raunchiness. Every moment Che Diaz is on screen, however, is absolutely mortifying. They are Carrieâs gender nonbinary, pansexual boss, who hired her to cohost a podcast about gender and sexuality. Itâs actually a shrewd creative decision to introduce a character that forces these privileged, multimillionaire white boomers to fumble their way into a progressive mindset. Itâs nice to see how casual, yet serious Carrie is about taking Cheâs identity at face value and getting used to using different pronouns. That Che would provide a mirror through which Charlotte starts to understand her own daughter is kind of beautiful. That they would be the catalyst for Mirandaâs sexual awakening was telegraphed a mile away. The storyline is good, though the Che stuff itself is nearly impossible to watch. How unfortunate that a character like this is so heinous. No one wants to single out the only new LGBTQ+ character on a series as the worst. Yet Che Diaz leaves us no choice. There should be conversation about gender, sex and queerness in a modern Sex and the City telling. And it should be jarring. It should be destabilizing for these women. It should also make sense, and be delivered in a way that remotely resembles how an actual human talks or behaves. Whether itâs the content of their podcast or everything that is said in what have become the four most harrowing words in the last 12 months of televisionââChe Diazâs comedy concertââwhatever wokeness, enlightenment, or edginess that is supposed to be happening lands with all the grace of me tripping over my laptop charger cord while getting up to get another glass of wine on a Friday night. Itâs not provocative, and certainly not intelligent. In fact, it comes off as if a smarmy far-right pundit or creator was satirizing or parodying those conversations and the leftâs wokeness addiction. Thatâs how broad and obtuse it is. The interactions between Che and Cynthia Nixonâs Miranda are hard to watch. Thatâs not because of any discomfort with the queer attraction being explored. Itâs because Che is unhinged. The shotgunning of weed off a vape pen. The fingerbanging in Carrieâs kitchen while Carrie pees her bed. The instruction to Miranda to âDM meâ if she wants to hang out again. Itâs hard to put into words the vibe, other than to say the vibe is unsettling. Every time someone calls Miranda âRambo,â an angel loses their wings. Blessedly, Che only appears in flashback to the aforementioned kitchen fingering in this weekâs episode, but their presence looms large as the catalyst for a serious discussion between Miranda, Charlotte and Carrie about what Miranda is doing and how this affair could explode her life. Itâs beautifully acted. Itâs the best scene of the episode. Itâs all we could ask for, after weathering these last six weeks of And Just Like Thatâ¦: talking about Che, but not having to hear from Che. If, like me, you have the great misfortune of being unable to remove your eyeballs from your Twitter timelineâitâs a diseaseâthen youâve seen that I am not alone in my thoughts about Che Diaz. For the past few weeks, even on days when a new episode of And Just Like That⦠hasnât dropped, thereâs been a non-stop barrage of posts dragging the character for filth, whether itâs comparing them to Omicron or illustrating the terror one feels anytime they introduce themselves on their podcast: âHey! Itâs Che Diaz!â Where does Che Diaz rank in the pantheon of horrible TV characters? Iâm not sure theyâre as bad as Ellis Boyd from Smash or [Dana Brody from Homeland](. They might give April from Gilmore Girls a run for her money. Theyâre at least as annoying as Ani from 13 Reasons Why. Is this a Cousin Oliver/Brady Bunch series killer? Itâs too early to tell. That, actually, is the disappointing thing here. Thereâs something admirable in the messiness of this seriesâand appropriate for a group of women unmoored as lifeâs circumstances force them to figure out, yet again, who they are and what they want from the world, not to mention how to exist in it as it changes around them. Yet from what I can tell, the biggest talking points thus far havenât been about that, but about Peloton, the [disturbing accusations against Chris Noth](, and how unbearable Che Diaz is. It would be a shame if the series doesnât get another season because these things have overshadowed any true examination of the show. And just like that, in spite of Che Diaz, here we are defending this series again. Try Getting Me to Talk About Anything But Yellowjackets Over the holidays, Americans seem to occupy their time with a suitable, wholesome seasonal activity: bingeing a TV show about teenage girls who start killing each other and becoming cannibals. Nothing says âthe holidaysâ like love, family, and gruesome televised trauma. The Showtime drama series [Yellowjackets has been a massive word-of-mouth hit]( this winter. We [first wrote about it after four episodes]( of it had aired, desperate for people to watch. Since then, four more episodes have launched and, with two to go before the season finale, itâs become the kind of watercooler obsession that rarely happens these days. Fans arenât just gushing about it on social media. Theyâre [digging through Reddit message boards for theories about what might happen](, piecing together clues like [Carrie Mathison]( during a psychotic break. And the uninitiated are scrambling, catching onto the fact that everyone else is talking about this show and realizing that if they donât get their ass in gearâwhich is to say, park it on the couch for eight hours to catch up fastâthe worst thing that could possibly happen to a person as we enter yet another winter of pandemic house arrest might be their fate: A very good TV show is going to be spoiled for them. As much as we spent 60-70 percent of our day screaming into our pillow in lonely despair that, two years later, the circumstances of the world around us remain frustratingly familiar, there is something, at least in the pop-culture space, that has changed. The TV series that became cultural phenomena, exploding as word-of-mouth ensured that everyone you knew was watching, had been feel-good TV, mindless distractions, and ultimately diverting, ridiculous entertainment. The final season of Schittâs Creek was huge. Reality series as benign and boring as Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset, truly two of the worst shows to stain our television, became beautiful, welcome escapes. Something like Tiger King was dumb enough to distract us for a bit. As things got darker, Ted Lasso and the title characterâs gee-golly sunniness [became a savior](. This last year saw comedies like Hacks and Only Murders in the Building build interest week after week. That all makes perfect sense. Who wanted to be further traumatized by brutal fiction at a time when reality was already so harrowing? But Yellowjackets indicates that weâve turned a corner. We are salivating over this show about survival, carnage, and lingering PTSD. Itâs a series that jumps back and forth through time between when a plane carrying a high school girlsâ soccer team crashes in the wilderness in 1996, leaving those who made it to desperately fend for themselves as they waited 19 months to be rescued, and 25 years later as four of those girlsâplayed by Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Tawny Cypressâgrapple with the disturbing lengths they went to in order to make it out of the woods alive. (This is where the aforementioned cannibalism comes into play.) Iâve been wondering about its popularity, too, as [Station Eleven, HBO Maxâs series]( about a pandemic that nearly wipes out all civilization and a traveling Shakespearean theater troupe that attempts to find meaning in the aftermath, also builds in popularity. Just months ago, we would have thrown our TV out the window rather than sit through a series centered on a lethal virus. Yet, like so many, we find Station Eleven to be cathartic and beautiful. It shares an element with Yellowjackets, I think: At this point, weâre interested in stories about what happens after we survive. I wonât spoil whatâs going on in Yellowjackets right now, though if youâve been watching, there is a treasure trove of deep-dives online into clues and theories about what happened in the wilderness to keep you entertained until Sundayâs new episode. But I do want to single out one thing that Iâve found particularly brilliant about the series. Sure, there is no hesitance in revealingâwith unflinching, gross detailâjust how violent and gruesome what these girls are going through in the woods is. The show smartly teased this massive mystery in the first episode, this sequence in which we see a girl chased and murdered, a contingent of them masked in cult garb, and then, of course, eating their victim. But it also hasnât flashed back to that sequence since. Fans are loving piecing together the clues as to what happened and attempting to identify victims and cult members, but by refusing to inundate us with more footage of that time in their journey, Yellowjackets is only titillating us even more to find out what might be revealed in the finale in two weeks. I canât wait. Buzz-buzz, bitches. Elmo vs. Rocco Is All I Live For It is with humble self-awareness that I recognize that not everyone is a garbage-feeding masochist who spends their entire life scrolling online. (That common New Yearâs resolution to cut back on screen time? Couldnât be me.) And so I acknowledge that it can sometimes be impossible to describe to a normal, healthy person the nuances of an utterly meaningless thing that becomes a social media obsession for a day or two, but probably makes zero sense to anybody who is not extremely and interminably online. That said, I must bring up the [Elmo vs. Rocco feud](. The short version is that someone unearthed a clip from Sesame Street in which Elmo appears with Zoe and Zoeâs imaginary friend, Rocco, who is an actual rock. Not a rock-like Muppet who talks and has human features. Just, like, a rock. [In the first viral clip](, Elmo wants a cookie but is told he canât have one because Zoe is saving it for Rocco. Elmo loses it. Heâs being deprived of a cookie because of a rock?! In another, Zoe wants [Elmo to wish Rocco a happy birthday](. Elmo is simply not having any of Zoeâs shit with this. Itâs some of the best comedic timing Iâve seen in a while, and itâs from Sesame Street. Anyway, Elmo began trending. The discord between Elmo and Rocco got labeled âa beef.â Elmo released a statement in response, shading Rocco yet again. [Jada Pinkett-Smith invited]( Elmo and Rocco to the Red Table. Itâs all ludicrous and meaninglessâbut a nice reminder that sometimes the hellscape that is the internet can be a lot of fun. #NeverForget E!âs Insurrection Coverage A year ago we were all in shock over what was happening at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection. No one knew how to process it. That included the folks over at E!, as in the celebrity news channel and former home of the Kardashians. I am forever indebted to writer Carey OâDonnell, who [fastidiously documented E!âs coverage]( of the insurrectionâyes, E! Inexplicably covered the insurrectionâand on the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, [resurfaced the one single thing]( about it that still makes me laugh uncontrollably. Points Were Made. I hear GLAAD just updated its mission statement after [Cardi B sent this tweet](. What to watch this week: Search Party: On my tombstone it will read, âMore of you should have watched Search Party.â (Fri. on HBO Max) The Righteous Gemstones: A comedy about a scamming megachurch starring John Goodman. Need I say more? (Sun. on HBO) Euphoria: The youths are back to terrify you! (Sun. on HBO) What to skip this week: Darcey & Stacey: There are *three* 90-Day Fiancé spin offs premiering Monday alone. This must be stopped. (Mon. on TLC) The 355: There are worse ways to spend an evening than watching Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz and Lupita Nyongâo be kickass spies. But there are better ways, too. (Fri. in theaters) Advertisement
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