The Romanoffs - "The Royal We" review

John Cheever is a huge influence on Matthew Weiner.  In a 2014 interview with the New York Times, Weiner was quoted as saying, "Cheever has a voice filled with irony and comedy and pain that, on some level, I'm always seeking to emulate."  But even without getting it straight from the horse's mouth, one could watch just a single episode of Mad Men and see how the preeminant writer on suburban malaise informs the lives of its characters, particularly when they're outside of the walls of Sterling Cooper etc.  And without the plot framework of the advertising world, Weiner has decided to go full Cheever with The Romanoffs.

More so than "The Violet Hour," "The Royal We" captures that sense of irony and comedy and pain, as it introduces the ultimate tale of suburban malaise.  We meet Michael and Shelly Romanoff (Corey Stoll and Kerry Bishe), a married couple in the midst of a couples therapy session.  It's implied that their troubles stem from a lack of communication and listening, as Shelly speaks about an observation regarding relationships that she heard in a movie while Michael blankly stares out the window and fusses with some trinket on the couch's end table.  At the suggestion of the therapist, the couple decides to go on a cruise together.  But when Michael gets stuck in jury duty, an ensuing fight facilitates Shelly's decision to go on the cruise as a solo trip.

What follows are the twin journeys of Michael and Shelly during their respective days apart.  During the trial, Michael becomes fixated on a beautiful woman named Michelle (Janet Montgomery) on the jury, whom he first spotted during the preliminary selection process.  Weiner and co-writer Michael Goldbach paint his obsession as a bit of comedic buffoonery -- he doesn't even know anything about this woman and yet he blows off paying attention to the evidence and testimonies of the trial to draw pictures of her shoe, in lieu of taking notes.  Which makes it even more hilarious when he's the only person to vote not guilty in what should be a clear-cut deliberation, in order to spend more time in the presence of this woman.  He reasons that "this is a man's life at stake."  But he doesn't actually care about this man's life, or else he would have been more attentive during the court proceedings.  There's something almost sad about Michael's sense of desperation.

Meanwhile, Shelly is on this cruise that we find out is specifically for Romanov descendants.  She's an outsider in this inherited world, as she's only a Romanov by marriage to Michael.  Just her luck, she meets a fellow cruise attendee (played by Noah Wyle) who's also only there because his spouse who couldn't make it is a Romanov.  Here, the show returns back to its ideations on family history, as the two of them casually discuss their background.  Shelly says she's a mixture of Scottish and various other things, then finishing it off with a dismissive "who really gives a shit?"  Only everyone else on this boat.

What makes "The Royal We" special is how it places these two stories next to one another.  As much as we've seen the lack of connection between Michael and Shelly's relationship when they're together, the stories of them apart seem to work in a rhythm.  Match cuts transition from Michael's story to Shelly's and vice versa, as we see Michelle take a puff from her cigarette just as Shelly is lighting hers miles away.  The episode is full of these narrative daisy chains; it moves so smoothly and fluidly.  They're on parallel journeys almost every step of the way, as each of them contemplate cheating on one another with a person they just met.

Each of their stories play like they're acting out their biggest fantasies, and it's quite the insight into their characters.  Michael's is a mixture of power fantasy and hero narrative.  He meets this beautiful woman, goes on a crime-solving adventure, and brings her to his remote cabin in the woods to sleep with her.  And in the cabin he plays the role of the aggressive type, coming on so strong until she's overpowered by his masculine aura.  It's like something out of a letter to a men's magazine.  Shelly, on the other hand, finds a companion where her husband couldn't be there for her.  (Pointedly, he sits in a seat at dinner assigned for Michael, metaphorically assuming his rule.)  Earlier in the therapy session, Shelly mentions that all she really wants is for her and Michael to do something together that they can both enjoy.  And she gets that in the form of Ivan.  He takes in this bizarre cruise spectacle with Shelly, he's kind to her, and most importantly, he listens to her as she tells him what's on her mind.

For the difference between Michael and Shelly, it's a question of who understands the narrative they're in.  Shelly ultimately doesn't sleep with Ivan, stopping things short at a kiss they share in front of her room door.  She knows that this is a vacation, both literally and symbolically.  A tryst at sea is not going to solve her problems on the land.  And, perhaps naively, she thinks Michael is home doing no wrong.  That's when we cut back to Michael, who isn't even aware that he's in a story that's been told a million times before.  Because of the kind of man he is, wrapped up in his middle-aged self-pity, he thinks his feelings are unique and special, that he's found the real deal with Michelle.

Aside from in the professional prowess and general debonair departments, Michael isn't all that different from a Don Draper type, running to the first sign of a new beginning.  He becomes attached to Michelle and the idea of leaving Shelly, so much so that he latches on to an offhand remark made when Michelle tries to end things permanently, and he gets his mind set on murdering his wife and making it look like an accident.  All of this to be with a woman who he's somehow convinced will fix his unhappiness with life.  As he takes Shelly out on a hike with the intention of offing her, it feels like the story has taken a turn for the shallow, less like Cheever and more like an airport novel.

But I shouldn't have doubted Weiner's ability to zig when I expect him to zag.  And zag he does -- Michael pushes Shelly off of a small ledge, only for her to catch herself and survive with only a few scratches and a sprained ankle.  As much as he tries to convince her it was an accident, she knows he just tried to kill her and it gives her the clarity she needed the whole time.  It's here that we realize once and for all that this is not Michael's story of middle-aged discontent.  The camera follows Shelly as she rides off into the sunset away from him, and reveals that it's actually her story of self-actualization.

Ultimately, that's what makes "The Royal We" land so well.  It takes what we know about the tropes of the mid-life crisis story and Weiner's influences, and completely turns it on its head.  It's a total subversion of the Cheever formula.  Kill your ancestors, the time to embark on a new path has arrived.


Bonus Points
-Kerry Bishe is one of my favorite actors, with my love stretching from her incredible turn as Donna on Halt and Catch Fire all the way back to her appearance in the pilot of Virtuality, the 2009 sci-fi series that never came to fruition.  And it's an absolute dream come true to see her act in a Matt Weiner show.  She's such an open and vulnerable performer, and I love the range she shows in Shelly's arc across this episode.

-Characters discussing their level of happiness is a recurring motif here.  Michael advises a student at the college prep center that nobody is happy, when he really means that he's not happy.  Michelle decides to let her affair with him be just an affair because she's happy with the life she's already living.  And Shelly doesn't sleep with Ivan because she thinks she's happy with Michael, only to learn by the end that she has room to be even happier without him.

-A detail I just noticed as I was taking notes: In an episode about how what we see in people is often just a reflection of what we want, the name Michelle is very close to being a reflection of Michael.  And it's also a variant of Shelly.

-One of the big accusations against this show so far is that the stories are thin, but I couldn't disagree with that sentiment more.  It's a dense show on first watch, and there were so many details that I only picked up on during a rewatch.  For instance, I realized during my second watch that Michael didn't just end up on the jury.  He purposely didn't tank the questioning because of Michelle.

-The all-too-brief cameo from John Slattery in this episode is the ultimate flex.

-I love Matthew Weiner and almost all of his choices, but the Kendrick Lamar "DNA" needle drop was awful and feels as out of place as the time "Infanta" by The Decemberists played during an episode of Mad Men.

-I didn't get to touch on lineage as much in the review but it's interesting that in the final therapy session, Shelly says that finding out more about Michael's bloodline on the cruise made her understand what made him the way he is.  That's a fascinating idea to keep in mind throughout the rest of these episodes.  Michael's troubles in this episode feel less like a genetic disposition and more like your boilerplate sadsack loserdom.  But perhaps there's something Romanovian in his inability to realize that about himself, much like Anushka and Greg in "The Violet Hour" didn't have the self-awareness to realize the emptiness of their resolutions.

The Romanoffs - "The Violet Hour" review

It's tough for a TV creator to follow up their masterwork, to be expected to deliver another success after making something that captures the culture and achieves critical acclaim.  Some play it safe and return to the world they know (Vince Gilligan making Better Call Saul after finishing Breaking Bad), some venture off into the world of film (David Chase directing Not Fade Away years after The Sopranos ended), and others have flopped (John From Cincinnati, David Milch's post-Deadwood failure).  This is the predicament Matthew Weiner found himself in upon Mad Men's completion in 2015.  After coming up in the trenches of writers' rooms for other people's shows, he branched out on his own and made one of the greatest dramas of all time.  But could he do it again?

Enter The Romanoffs.  It came pitched with the odd premise of "an anthology series on Amazon Prime where every episode centers on a different set of people who believe themselves to be descendants of Russian royal family the Romanovs."  With that description, married with its reportedly astronomical budget, and heat against Weiner due to allegations regarding his sexual harassment of a former writer on the Mad Men staff, it felt like the energy surrounding the show had all the makings of it being a massive failure.  Well now the first two episodes have been made available -- with the rest of the installments dropping one at a time every Friday -- and everyone can see for themselves.

The first of the two episodes is an 84-minute affair titled "The Violet Hour."  The France-set episode introduces us to Anushka (Marthe Keller) an elderly woman who is being rushed to the hospital for an incident related to high blood pressure.  Once she's there, her American nephew Greg (Aaron Eckhart) comes to her aide.  Right off the bat, we get one of those classic Matthew Weiner lines that's economical, witty, and character revealing all in one go: when Greg asks the doctor for the prognosis, he retorts "Even hypochondriacs get sick sometimes."  The episode paints a clear picture of Greg not long after, as we quickly learn that he is basically the only family Anushka has left, and he and his French girlfriend are waiting for her to pass away so they can inherit her swanky Parisian apartment.

Not to be outdone by her nephew's vulture circling, Anushka's got some personal flaws of her own.  She operates with a curtness and sense of entitlement, and never has a shortage of vitriol to throw in any direction.  This amplifies with the appointment of a new maid in her apartment, a Muslim woman named Hajar, which causes conflict because, well, Anushka is racist as hell.  She's constantly making assumptions about Hajar's heritage and overall level of class due to her skin color and religious background, casually cruel in a way that makes clear this is a deeply ingrained mindset.  But eventually she does find space to not be completely bigoted and dismissive around the halfway point of the episode, when we finally loop back to the series' central premise, as Anushka tells Hajar of her connection to the Romanov family.  Earlier in the episode, Hajar's eye is caught by a gorgeous jeweled egg in the dining room, which Anushka now tells her is a family heirloom.  What's more is that it belonged to the Romanov family and traveled to France before they were all murdered.  It's a symbol of their wealth and stature, "the family bank," as Anushka describes.  But once France was under Nazi occupation during World War II, the egg was stolen and had to be replaced with a fake.

"The Violet Hour" ponders all manner of lineage and class throughout its run.  For instance, Anushka always makes jabs about Hajar being a foreigner but Hajar was, in fact, born in France.  Hajar even has to point out to Greg that she's a native Parisian when he asks her where she's from when they first meet.  For all of Anushka's haughtiness, Hajar is just as French as she is.  Maybe even more so, because the former sequesters herself in her apartment, shielded away from the real world of Paris.  At one point, Anushka insists that she knows what it's like to be an exile, stating "I dream of Russia every night."  But the irony is that when Hajar asks her how long it's been since she was there, Anushka replies that she's never actually been.  So she's never been to Russia, her whole family is dead, and the only thing that ties her to her bloodline is a Faberge egg that isn't even real.

Again, it's an episode full of this Weiner gift, pointed bits of dialogue that sketch out a whole lifetime of character.  He can construct an exchange of conversation that carries the weight that pure plot does on other shows.  It has a spark and litheness, allowing you to not just marvel at the surface beauty of the content but the subtext of it as well.  All of that is on full display in Greg and Hajar's conversations after Anushka's spitefully changes her will to leave the apartment to Hajar.  They share a dinner and a long walk-and-talk, and the night unfolds in such a way that their eventual tryst feels both unexpected and inevitable.  What's most interesting is how close the episode plays its cards to its chest regarding each of their motivations.  We assume that Greg is trying to use his charm to seduce Hajar into giving up the apartment, but that becomes less and less clear.  Same with Hajar -- is her decision based on a desire to class-hop or genuine connection?  Ultimately, I think it lands on a fascinating brew of everything at once.

The story remains fleet-footed and surprising until the very end, where it almost turns into a broad comedy when it reveals that Hajar is pregnant with Greg's baby, causing the two of them to profess their love for one another.  It feels like something out of a Jane Austen novel, but it works because of the place it leaves all of its characters.  Greg and Hajar are left with a romance, but can it work when it's built on such a weak foundation?  Anushka gets her wish of continuing the bloodline, a fact that's only important to her.  And as a consolation prize for all of her trouble, Sophie chooses to leave with none other than that fake Faberge egg.  It's a happy ending right up until the point where you realize all anyone has is a meaningless token.

So which category does The Romanoffs fall into as a follow-up?  Most critics would have you believe that it's a failure, with many calling it thin and self-indulgent.  But after "The Violet Hour," I'm inclined to believe that it's a rousing success.  It's a terrific example of Matthew Weiner applying Mad Men's writing style to a slightly more flexible frame, and he shows that he's still one of the best at creating wholly-realized characters and constructing stories that breathe and flow with ease.  This is an hour and a half of television that feels nimble and elegantly sculpted and so, so textured.  Bring on the next six weeks.


Bonus Points
-I'd be a fool if I didn't give a shout out to the opening credits, which start out elegantly and refined before turning into a bloodbath soundtracked by "Refugee" from Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.  Mad Men has one of the most iconic opening credits of the century, so it can't quite match that, but this one is pretty bold and interesting in its own right.

-I'm no expert, but Aaron Eckhart French seemed pretty good.  The moment when he mispronounces Hajar as "Hagar" is one of the funniest parts of the episode though.

-I couldn't work it into the main body of the review but Hajar and Anushka's argument about her people being the backbone of civilization was not only a terrific scene, but an excellent tie into the episode's musings on lineage and class.

The underrated Nicole Holofcener returns with The Land of Steady Habits

Longtime readers of this blog know how much of a Nicole Holofcener fan I am.  The sublime indie writer-director is known for taking long gaps between her films, and while this still holds true, she's actually been quite active since the release of her previous feature, 2013's excellent Enough Said.  In the time since then, she's had a number of jobs directing episodes of TV shows like Togetherness, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Orange is the New Black, while also penning the scripts for 2014's Every Secret Thing and this month's Can You Ever Forgive Me?  But the only way to experience the full power of Holofcener's prowess is through a project where she's responsible for the writing and directing, and in that sense, her newest film, The Land of Steady Habits is her first mainline film in five years.  For a superfan like myself this was an absolute event, and I treated it as such, watching it shortly after it premiered on Netflix last month.

After making her name as one of the most observant and thoughtful filmmakers when it comes to the inner and outer lives of women, she tries her hand this time around at a male protagonist.  (Perhaps an even bigger shock is the fact that this is her first feature film without longtime collaborator Catherine Keener.)  Based on a book by the same name, the film follows Anders Hill (Ben Mendelsohn), a man who finds himself restless after the twin major events of his recent divorce and an early retirement from his soul-crushing job in finance.  On its journey to find Anders' true north, the story ends up being slightly more incident-heavy and darker than what we're used to from Holofcener.  So Steady Habits clearly finds Holofcener pushing herself out of her comfort zone in small ways.

But while giving us a slightly new taste, the film still ends up feeling like classic Holofcener on a bone-deep level.  It's imbued with her usual sense of grace and wit, gliding along in its 98 minutes full of relaxed, true-to-life banter that hits the right balance of quotidian and insightful.  Her characters are always slightly brittle, uneasy folks that you somehow feel an incredible amount of warmth for and it's no different here.  Anders is another character in the Holofcener tradition, a man who is acting out of a surface frustration and dissatisfaction without fully grasping the true thing that's gnawing at him.  In a few bits of economical exposition, we learn that he retired from his job because, as he describes, it was very demanding and morally unjust.  You get the sense that it was a move he made because it would be the thing that finally made him happy.  But shortly after that, he decided to leave his wife Helene (Edie Falco) as well.  And that's where we arrive at his story, no more content or whole than he was before he blew his life up.  The whole movie is him trying to remedy the wrong ailment, not realizing that his entire sense of unease is driven by the fact that he has the rest of his life in his windshield and no idea what to do with it.

That ennui is the driving force for what is another theme that fans of Nicole Holofcener will know very well.  One of the most poignant threads of her previous film Enough Said was the B-plot between main character Eva (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her daughter's best friend, Chloe (Tavi Gevinson).  It's the summer before Eva's daughter goes away to college, and she finds herself getting attached to Chloe, who will still be around when fall starts.  It's a small, unspoken little throughline that never fully gets verbalized or confronted, but it's very clear that Eva's actions are a way of working through her anxiety that her daughter will soon be moving far away, leaving her all alone.

In a similar way, Steady Habits has Anders form a bond with Charlie (Charlie Tahan), the son of his ex-wife's best friends.  The two first encounter each other in the film at a party thrown by Charlie's parents that Anders crashes.  When Anders wanders outside, he happens upon Charlie with his friends smoking a bong, and Anders' mid-life crisis-induced odd decision-making leads him to join them, where he learns that the marijuana is laced with PCP once he smokes it.  Charlie overdoses later in the night and must be taken to the hospital -- just another chapter in his apparent battle with drugs.  The wayward relationship between Anders and Charlie ends up forming much of the skeleton of the film's back half.  Not only is it a situation that gives us further evidence of how adrift Anders feels in his life, it takes on even more significance when viewed alongside his relationship with his own son, Preston (Thomas Mann).  See, Preston has his own issues with addiction -- a past stint in rehab gets mentioned a few times in conversation -- and his life isn't exactly in order, as he's chosen to loaf around after graduating college.  Anders has a decent enough relationship with his son, yet he seems to inadvertently spend so much time with Charlie.

Is Anders drawn to Charlie because he sees Preston in him?  Is it a way to not actually deal with his own son's problem?  Is he grasping on to any thread from his previous life, however tenuous?  Does Anders even know why he does what he does?  It's a series of questions that Steady Habits asks the audience to ponder, and that mystery is what makes him such a compelling protagonist.

What makes the film so special is that it's not wholly Anders' story though.  Holofcener has a way of distributing her narratives in a generous fashion, spreading them out wide enough to touch a myriad of supporting characters and their lives.  Some critics, like Indiewire's David Ehrlich, took issue with the way she seems to have her attention on so many different threads in this one, but I love the way that every character and subplot add to the general idea that the film is trying to express.  It's a story about the life unlived, ruminating on everything from what parents and children owe each other to whether it's worthwhile to steer your existence in another direction when you've already spent so much of it going one way, and every new branch that explores those themes just deepens the roots of Anders' struggles.

In previous works like Please Give and Walking and Talking, Holofcener has favored happier endings for her characters.  They go through their trials, but they tend to come away from those situations with a better understanding of themselves, their place in the world, and how they relate to those they love the most.  The Land of Steady Habits, then, is a bold turn in that regard.  Charlie dies of another overdose towards the end of the film and is found by Preston alone in the woods, a grim flash for the latter of what could've happened if a few things went differently in his own life.  And everything comes to a head at a dinner between the two families, where Charlie's parents learn that Anders was the last person to see Charlie, and that he let Charlie run off instead of calling to inform them that he had broken out of the hospital.  It's a bleak climax, one that's made all the more fascinating because what follows is pretty ambiguous in regards to Anders' growth as a person.  Months pass and everyone attempts to move on with their lives, with Anders continuing to date the woman he met earlier in the film (played by the great Connie Britton) while also looking after the turtle Charlie left him.  Holofcener loves a symbolic token, and the turtle is just another one in a long line of them.  Instead of leaving Anders with a lesson learned, it presents him with a more difficult task, the choice to learn a lesson from everything that just happened to him.

This is a film that doesn't seem to have landed with too many critics out there.  Nicole Holofcener isn't exactly a widely celebrated filmmaker, but she has certainly carved out a niche for fans, and even many of those people consider her latest to be a minor misstep.  However, the film and its ending in particular walloped me.  The Lands of Steady Habits sits right alongside the rest of her sterling filmography; it's another work that gives us a view of her considerable ability to sketch out the lives and psychologies of characters in simple, fluid strokes.  And in its small storytelling risks, it points toward exciting new avenues for her to explore as a filmmaker.  Hopefully this won't be the last time Netflix provides her with money to do her thing.  There aren't many others out there who can make a specific gem like this.

Favorites: May - July 2018

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

I've been a bad little boy and I've neglected to do a post about my monthly favorites for the past few months.  In all fairness though, I have a good excuse: writing sucks.  If you're out there and you're thinking about writing something, anything at all, I do not recommend it.  With that being said, I'm back with a catch-up on some favorites since I've been away.  I'm also going to try to recommit myself to the awful task of writing more posts, but I can't make any promises.

Movies

Leave No Trace

Winter's Bone was received warmly throughout the film world when it came out in 2010, so you would think that it would have led to director Debra Granik getting a slew of projects made, but Leave No Trace is her first feature film since then.  (Her 2014 documentary, Stray Dog, came and went with little fanfare.)  Fortunately, this follow-up was worth the wait.  Leave No Trace is the latest in the ever-present "white people making a go of it in the woods" genre, as it follows a father suffering from PTSD related to his time in the military raising his teen daughter on the outskirts of society.  It's a story that moves with such grace and subtlety, building so gradually that you don't expect it to wallop you as much as it does by the end.


Music

Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose

After loving the era-defining Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan, I was not a fan of the Dirty Projectors self-titled album from last year.  A self-indulgent, nasty, tune-deficient effort, it felt like maybe Dave Longstreth was lost without his former creative partners who infused their impulses into his best work.  So I was just as surprised as anyone by how great Lamp Lit Prose is.  A return to form in every sense of the phrase, the album re-injects energy and vitality into the band's sound.  If you hopped off of the Dirty Projectors train after the last album, give "I Feel Energy" or "Zombie Conqueror" a try.

Hatchie

I recently became a fan of Hatchie after listening to her debut EP from earlier this year, Sugar & Spice.  It's a lovely bit of 90s style dream pop that's endlessly catchy and swoon-inducing.  I have some concerns about how well her style will hold up on a full-length, but the five songs she's given us so far really do the trick.

Television

Channel Zero: Candle Cove

I checked out Syfy's anthology horror series Channel Zero, which adapts a different creepypasta each season, back when it first started, but dropped it due to time constraints and a slow start to the show. However, I recently just back into it and finished the first season.  Candle Cove doesn't ever ramp up from its deliberate pace, but eventually the show's mounting dread begins to pile on.  It's a show that knows how to unsettle the viewer with simple images (often pulling off the trick in daylight scenes) and I look forward to seeing what the following two seasons bring.

Pose

Over the years, I've slowly warmed up to Ryan Murphy's work, to the point where I even consider myself a fan.  Part of the reason is that he produces so many shows now that he has to take a step back -- instead of shepherding shows with his go-for-broke, chaotic sensibilities, he helps other writers get their vision on to the screen while providing a perfect splash of his style.  Such is the case with Pose, an iridescent blast of a show about the LGBT community and ball culture in 1980s New York.  Murphy and his team of writers find the perfect balance of joy and tragedy in this story of society's outcasts trying to express themselves.  It can get a little after-school special with its drama, and not all of the acting is up to snuff, but it earns its broad moments by making you care about its colorful, complicated characters.

Succession

Many people gradually came around to HBO's Succession, the amorphous genre blob from Jesse Armstrong (Fresh Meat, The Thick of It, the "Entire History of You" episode of Black Mirror) but I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. Succession was great from the very beginning, it's just so radical that it took a while for people to get on its wavelength.  We've seen funny dramas and dramatic comedies before, but the energy of this series feels unique and unable to be squeezed into either of those boxes.  The closest approximation to its tone is, well, The Thick of It.  All I can say is that this vicious, hilarious series about a slimy rich family is one of the best shows on television, and there's no shame in hopping on this wild freight train late.

Miscellaneous

Crunchyroll Premium

I've been watching alot of anime lately (maybe you'll see a post about it soon!) and I figured it was time to upgrade to the Premium version of Crunchyroll.  For those who don't know, Crunchyroll is the most popular (legal) anime streaming site that offers over hundreds of series, and even simulcasts new shows that are airing in Japan.  The Premium version is great -- you don't have to wait a week for the new simulcast episodes and you get to watch videos in HD on any device.  It's well worth the $6.95 per month price, even if you're just a moderate anime fan.

Pitchfork's interview with Liz Phair and Lindsey Jordan

I try not to write too much about things that are likely to end up on my year end list in this column, or else I would've covered the debut Snail Mail album Lush, which I was skeptical of at first but then quickly fell in love with.  So it was a real treat to read the recent Pitchfork feature where Lindsey Jordan, the songwriter behind Snail Mail, and Liz Phair interview each other about various topics.  Few things are more enjoyable than seeing these two different generations of indie rock have a freewheeling conversation about music and gender.

The New Yorker's profile on Ryan Murphy

Emily Nussbaum's profile of Ryan Murphy from a couple of months ago is such an entertaining read, and even the biggest Murphy skeptic -- as I used be -- might come away from it respecting him more.

The Bold Type is assuaging all showrunner change fears in its great second season

Usually the words "showrunner change" elicit waves of fear in the fans of a show.  Who can forget the huge dip in quality that Community took when main creative force Dan Harmon left the show in season four, or the post-Aaron Sorkin years of The West Wing?  A changing of the guard may as well be the death knell for a series in the eyes of some.  So when last year's renewal of Freeform's The Bold Type came coupled with the news that showrunner Sarah Watson would be parting ways with the series, it was pretty alarming.  It certainly didn't help that there were rumors that Watson cited "creative differences" with the network as the reason for her departure.  Under her leadership, season one of the The Bold Type defied expectations, delivering a thoughtful weekly delight that uniquely focused on female friendship and navigating the working world as a young woman.  If Freeform couldn't see eye-to-eye with Watson and her vision, then it was cause for concern that maybe they didn't understand what made the show great.

Thankfully, there hasn't been any quality dip in the show's second season so far.  If anything, it's been even better with Amanda Lasher (Sweet/Vicious, Riverdale) running things.  That's not to say there hasn't been a notable difference in the voice of the show.  The tone feels a touch more comedic, particularly in its first few episodes back, with characters cracking more aside jokes than it seemed like they did last season.  And the characters feel a little tweaked too, especially Sutton, whose characterization as a sexual free spirit who has had alot of partners in her life feels like a shade that was only invented this season.  The writers have also done work to expand the world of Scarlet Magazine, adding tertiary characters who make the workplace feel more real and lived-in.

In all the ways that matter, though, this is still The Bold Type we know and love.  At its core, this remains to be about what it's like to be young and trying to make it in the working world.  Vox's Constance Grady wrote a terrific piece a few weeks ago where she posited that this series is a romcom, but that the love interest is these women's careers, and that's the best way to describe what makes it so refreshing.  From the beginning, it's been devoted to telling stories about the intersection of life, love, and profession, each of those threads tangling together and complicating one another.  Most stories about young women use their jobs as mere window dressing at best, but for the three leads, the work is an essential part of what defines them.  Season two has given us more rich stories in that vein, with Jane trying to find her post-Scarlet footing as a freelancer, Kat taking on  new responsibility as a department head, and Sutton struggling to find a balance between after-hours networking opportunities and not burning herself out.

But the greatest love story of all in the The Bold Type is the one between its central trio.  The friendship between Sutton, Kat, and Jane is one of the richest relationships on television, and one of the few friendship circles that operates the way actual ones do.  Shows are so focused on dishing out story that it's rare for them to show the characters just hanging out.  Often, the best scenes in The Bold Type are the ones where the main trio are spending idle time together, filling one another in on their lives and asking each other for advice.  It's a friendship built on towers of mutual love, respect, and care, not manufactured drama and petty backstabbing.

That's not to say there isn't conflict between the women, it's just that when there is, it feels like the organic little disagreements that pop up in any friendship.  A perfect example occurred a few episodes ago in "Stride of Pride."  Jane finds out that she didn't get a job she was excited about because the magazine is trying to diversify its hires, and when she complains about it, Kat gets upset with her for implying that whoever the magazine did hire would be less qualified.  Later in the episode, they come to an understanding, as Jane learns to recognize her white privilege and Kat realizes her response might have been extreme towards her friend who desperately needs a job.  It's a conflict that lasts all of two or three scenes, but it's compelling because the show understands how thrilling it can be to see people communicate and work through their disagreements in simple but real ways.  It feels almost radical how central talking things out is to every story.

The show feels modern not just in that aspect, but in the way it engages with issues effecting our world today.  It tackles everything from body positivity to sexual assault -- last year, it covered the #MeToo movement before there was even a term for it -- with grace and aplomb.  And it does so in a way that feels organic to the show, because it knows that these are things that are baked into the everyday lives of young people.  This season has been a wonder that shows no signs of slowing down.  Not only has it stepped aside any worries about the offseason showrunner change, The Bold Type has become one of the best shows on television.