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    Succession Finale: Was Tom Wambsgans a Reference to Bill Wambsganss?

    When Tom Wambsgans outmaneuvered the Roy siblings, getting himself named as the U.S. executive running Waystar Royco for GoJo at the end of a rollicking finale of the HBO series “Succession,” it likely came as a shock to many of the viewers at home. But to fans of baseball’s early days, and internet conspiracy theorists, the signs were there for Tom to come out on top, besting three competitors at the same time.“It’s me,” Wambsgans said to his wife, Shiv Roy.The clues were there for some, thanks to Bill Wambsganss, a second baseman for Cleveland from 1914 to 1923. Wambsganss didn’t hit much, and there’s little indication he was a stellar base runner or a top-notch fielder. But he had one moment of pure glory, turning the first — and only — unassisted triple play in World Series history.Tom Wambsgans also did not stand out to many ahead of the finale for much beyond his poor treatment of Cousin Greg and his destructive relationship with his wife. But his unusual surname, and the notion that he would have to knock out three opponents at once, caught fire on social media in recent days, thanks to a viral TikTok by Sophie Kihm, the editor in chief of Nameberry, an online catalog of baby names.Thanks to her video, people began to speculate if the show’s writers had tipped their hands as to who would come out on top — and how. The theory had existed in various places for awhile — some believe it explained the ending of Season 3 — but, as the series began to wrap up, the idea that Tom could end up winning, just like Wambsganss, started to feel more and more plausible.Whether the connection was intentional or not, it shined a light on a player who has been all but forgotten beyond one outrageously good play. Sean Forman of Baseball Reference reported on Sunday night that there had been a surge of traffic on Wambsganss’ player page in the wake of the show’s finale.What people are finding is an unremarkable player who made a play that is worth all the attention.Wambsganss and Cleveland were facing Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series. In the fifth inning of Game 5, with Cleveland leading by 7-0, Brooklyn’s Pete Kilduff and Otto Miller both singled. Clarence Mitchell then hit a liner that looked as if it could score a run or more.In a breathless story about the game the next day, which ran on page A1, The New York Times recounted what happened once the ball left Miller’s bat. Wambsganss, who had been playing fairly far from second base, “leaped over toward the cushion and with a mighty jump speared the ball with one hand,” the paper reported.“Wamby’s noodle began to operate faster than it ever did before,” the article continued. “He hopped over to second and touched the bag, retiring Kilduff, who was far down the alley toward third base.”With two outs already having been recorded on the play, Wambsganss turned his attention to Miller.“Otto was evidently so surprised that he was just glued to the ground, and Wamby just waltzed over and touched him for the third out,” the paper reported.The play gave Wambsganss a level of notoriety that eclipsed anything else about his career, or even his life despite his having gone on to manage in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.“Funny thing, I played in the big leagues for 13 years, 1914 through 1926, and the only thing that anybody seems to remember is that once I made an unassisted triple play in a World Series,” he said in the 1966 baseball oral history, “The Glory of Their Times.” “Many don’t even remember the team I was on, or the position I played, or anything. Just Wambsganss-unassisted triple play! You’d think I was born on the day before and died on the day after.”With “Succession” having completed its wildly popular run on television, we will never know if Tom Wambsgans was able to thrive after completing a triple play of his own, or if he would come to be defined only by the one moment, as Wambsganss was.In Wambsganss’s defense, it has been more than 100 years since the unassisted triple play, and people are still talking about him. You would have to assume Tom Wambsgans would be OK with having the same fate. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Idol’ and ‘Dave’

    HBO premieres its new series from the creator of “Euphoria,” and the show starring Lil Dicky wraps up.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, May 29 — June 4. Details and times are subject to change.MondayWHITE HOUSE PLUMBERS 9 p.m. on HBO. This mini-series starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux, based on the Watergate scandal, is wrapping up its run this week. Over the course of the five-episode run, Harrelson and Theroux play E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 presidential election. From there, we all pretty much know the rest of the story.From left: Josh Hamilton, Sydney Sweeney and Marchant Davis in “Reality.”Courtesy of HBOREALITY 10:05 p.m. on HBO. Set in 2017 and based on a true story, this new show follows Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and National Security Agency contractor as she is questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for leaking a classified report about election interference. The dialogue in the show, starring Sydney Sweeney, is taken from the real F.B.I. transcripts from Winner’s questioning.TuesdayAMERICA’S GOT TALENT 8 p.m. on NBC. Entering its 18th season, the show that celebrates talents and strange party tricks of all kinds is back with its first round of auditions this week. Terry Crews is returning as the host and Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Sofía Vergara will all be back as judges.WednesdayDAVE 10 p.m. on FXX. This semi-autobiographical show about the rapper Dave Burd, a.k.a. Lil Dicky, is wrapping up its third season this week with Dave ending his quest to find love. The show, which originally started as a story about a man in his late 20s who believed he was destined to become one of the greatest rappers of all time, has slowly turned into a show about Dave actually being a rapper, touring around and finding modest success.SECRETS OF THE DEAD: ABANDONING THE TITANIC 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic has had countless retellings; from the 1997 film to many documentaries, there is not a lot left unknown or uncovered. But in this documentary, investigators talk about a lesser-known detail: When the Titanic was sinking, another ship in sight sailed away instead of helping the people freezing to death in the water. Who was on the ship that sailed away? This documentary finds out.ThursdayElvis Presley and Ann Margaret in “Viva Las Vegas.”Agence France-PresseVIVA LAS VEGAS (1964) 6:30 p.m. on TCM. Elvis Presley plays a musically gifted racecar driver (naturally), who goes to Las Vegas to win enough money to buy a new car so he can enter the Grand Prix, but he ends up loosing all his earnings. While trying to make his money back, he falls into a love triangle with a swimming instructor (Ann-Margret) and another racecar driver (Cesare Danova). “Whatever it isn’t, ‘Viva Las Vegas’ remains friendly, wholesome and pretty as all get-out,” Howard Thompson wrote in his 1964 review for The New York Times.FridayOCEAN’S 11 (2001) 7:30 p.m. on TNT. If you’ve seen these films, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and lots of other big names, you know the three rules: “Don’t hurt anybody, don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and play the game like you’ve got nothing to lose.” That’s how Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his accomplices pull off one of the most elaborate casino heists that Vegas has ever seen. “For those not so taken by the star power, this new ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ is the equivalent of a domineering team you can’t stand that enters the Super Bowl,” Elvis Mitchell wrote in his review for The Times. “Even if you don’t like the players, the odds are so good that it’s tough to bet against them.”SaturdayThe Carolina Hurricanes played the Florida Panthers during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Final during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesSTANLEY CUP FINALS 8 p.m. on various networks. After a long hockey playoff season with lots of ups and downs (see: the Seattle Kraken beating the Colorado Avalanche), we have arrived at the finals, with the Florida Panthers playing either the Vegas Golden Knights or the Dallas Stars in Game 1.SundayLeonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in “Titanic.”Paramount Home EntertainmentTITANIC (1997) 6 p.m. on VH1. After watching the Titanic documentary, tune in for this whooping 3-hour-plus fictionalized account, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Jack and Rose, lovers who meet on the ship. Come for the love story and decadence, stay for the harrowing scenes of characters meeting terrifying deaths. “Beyond its romance, ‘Titanic’ offers an indelibly wrenching story of blind arrogance and its terrible consequences,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The Times.THE IDOL 9 p.m. on HBO. The production of this show, starring Lily-Rose Depp and Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a The Weeknd), got a rocky start and was eventually taken over by the “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson. Now it is finally coming to small screens. The show, which has been marketed by HBO as the “sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood,” follows an aspiring pop star (Depp) and her relationship with Tedros (Tesfaye), a self-help guru. “There’s a lot of dirty talk so grossly delivered by the Weeknd that you may need to mute and switch to closed captioning,” the Times reporter Kyle Buchanan wrote about the show after seeing the first two episodes at Cannes Film Festival. More

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    George Maharis, TV Heartthrob of ‘Route 66,’ Is Dead at 94

    He appeared in Off Broadway roles before starring on CBS as one of two young men who find adventure crossing the country in a Corvette convertible.George Maharis, the ruggedly handsome New York-born stage actor who went on to become a 1960s television heartthrob as a star of the series “Route 66,” died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 94.His longtime friend and caretaker, Marc Bahan, confirmed his death.Mr. Maharis’s greatest fame arose from the role of Buz Murdock, one of two young men who traveled the country in a Corvette convertible, finding a new adventure and drama (and usually a new young woman) each week on CBS’s “Route 66.”In a 2012 reappraisal of the show, the New York Times critic and reporter Neil Genzlinger praised the literary quality of the scripts and commented, “This half-century-old black-and-white television series tackled issues that seem very 21st century.”Several actors who went on to greater renown appeared on the show, including Martin Sheen, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and Barbara Eden.“Route 66” began in 1960, and Mr. Maharis left the show in 1963. His co-star, Martin Milner, got a new partner, played by Glenn Corbett, and the series continued for one more season.Mr. Maharis attributed his departure to health reasons (he was suffering from hepatitis), but Karen Blocher, an author and blogger who interviewed Mr. Maharis and other principal figures on the show, wrote in 2006 that the story was more complex.Herbert B. Leonard, the show’s executive producer, “thought he’d hired a young hunk for the show, a hip, sexy man and good actor that all the girls would go for,” Ms. Blocher wrote. “This was all true of Maharis, but not the whole story, as Leonard discovered to his anger and dismay. George was gay, it turned out.”Ms. Blocher attributed Mr. Maharis’s departure to a number of factors. “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis’s sexual orientation, and never trusted him again,” she wrote, adding, “Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and going unappreciated.”Mr. Maharis was arrested in 1967 on charges of “lewd conduct” and in 1974 on charges of “sex perversion” for cruising in men’s bathrooms.He did not discuss his sexuality in interviews, but he proudly described being the July 1973 nude centerfold in Playgirl magazine to Esquire in 2017.“A lot of guys came up to me,” he said, “and asked me to sign it for their ‘wives.’”Mr. Maharis had done well-received work in theater before becoming a television star. In 1958 he played a killer in an Off Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “Deathwatch.” Writing in The New York Times, Louis Calta described Mr. Maharis’s performance as “correctly volatile, harsh, soft and cunning.”Two years later, Mr. Maharis appeared in Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story” in its Off Broadway production at the Provincetown Playhouse. That year he was one of 12 young actors given the Theater World Award. The other winners included Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Carol Burnett. In 1962, he received an Emmy Award nomination for his work on “Route 66.”In 1963, Mr. Maharis told a writer for The Times that he treated the TV series like a job in summer stock theater.“The series taught me how to maintain my integrity and not be sucked in by compromise,” he said.George Maharis was born in the Astoria section of Queens on Sept. 1, 1928, the son of a Greek restaurateur. He attended Flushing High School and later served in the Marines.Before succeeding as an actor, he told interviewers, he had worked as a mechanic, a dance instructor and a short-order cook. But he had aspired to a singing career first, and after he became a television star he recorded albums including “George Maharis Sings!,” “Portrait in Music” and “Just Turn Me Loose!” At least one single, “Teach Me Tonight,” became a hit.“The series taught me how to maintain my integrity and not be sucked in by compromise,” Mr. Maharis said of his role on “Route 66.”Silver Screen Collection/Getty ImagesAfter leaving “Route 66,” Mr. Maharis appeared in feature films including “Sylvia,” with Carroll Baker, and “The Satan Bug,” a science-fiction drama (both 1965). He tried series television again in 1970 as the star of an ABC whodunit “The Most Deadly Game,” with Ralph Bellamy and Yvette Mimieux, but the show lasted only three months.In the 1970s and early ’80s, he made guest appearances on other television series, including “Police Story,” “The Bionic Woman” and “Fantasy Island.” He did occasional television films, including a poorly reviewed 1976 “Rosemary’s Baby” sequel. He worked infrequently in the 1980s and made his final screen appearance in a supporting role in “Doppelganger,” a 1993 horror film starring Drew Barrymore.Information about his survivors was not immediately available.Because of his filming schedule when the shows aired, Mr. Maharis did not have a chance to watch “Route 66” until it was rereleased on DVD in 2007, he told the website Route 66 News that year.“I was really surprised how strong they were,” he said. “For the first time, I could see what other people had seen.”In an interview the same year with The Chicago Sun-Times, he reflected on his “Route 66” days and on how the country had changed since then. “You could go from one town to the next, maybe 80 miles away, and it was a totally different world,” he said. “Now you can go 3,000 miles and one town is the same as the next.” More

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    Lexi Underwood Can Relate to ‘BoJack Horseman’

    The “Cruel Summer” actor explains why Frank Ocean, ramen and “MJ: The Musical” are among her favorite things.As she was learning the part of Isabella, who she plays on the teen drama “Cruel Summer,” Lexi Underwood asked herself, “What would Pearl do?”Pearl is one of her previous television roles, from the 2020 Hulu mini-series “Little Fires Everywhere.”That character, constantly uprooted by her enigmatic mother, has some similarities with Isabella, the daughter of peripatetic diplomats. Both have complicated relationships with their parents. Both crave stability and normal lives, suppressing their pain while pretending that everything is fine.“I felt as though I was able to pull some of the things that I learned along the way of playing Pearl and bring that to Isabella,” Underwood, 19, said in a video call. “It was like if Pearl was a little bit older and we got to see her living that type of life. I feel like maybe that’s the path that she would’ve gone down.” (“Cruel Summer” begins its second season on Freeform on June 5.)Underwood played Young Nala in “The Lion King” on Broadway when she was 11, and soon after persuaded her parents to let her visit Los Angeles for pilot season. She never left, and by 15 had started her own production company to tell the stories that were often overlooked.“I wanted to take matters into my own hands,” Underwood said before talking about meditation, Frank Ocean and the Netflix animated series “The Midnight Gospel.” “Any person that’s ever felt as though they haven’t been heard or were misrepresented, I want to make them feel seen.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1‘The Four Agreements’Every person should read this book at least once in their life. Because every agreement has multiple lessons that help us break down the parts of ourselves or our conditioning that no longer serve us as human beings, and that keep us from being free thinkers.2‘BoJack Horseman’I don’t know if I’ve ever related to a show more. I am a young actor in Hollywood, and I was a child actor, so I know what it’s like to go on that journey of being 10 or 11 in the industry, and then being a teenager, and then transitioning into your 20s, and all the ups and downs that go with that. I’ve never seen the ebb and flow of the industry, and how it affects your mental health as well, depicted in such an authentic way outside of “BoJack Horseman.”3MeditationThe way that you start a day and the way that you end a day is super important. Instead of reaching for my phone as soon as I wake up, I’m going straight to my meditation corner and thinking about the things that I’m grateful for and the energy that I want to bring into my day. And before you go to sleep, I think that it’s important to be able to have that quiet time with your body and with your mind and allow your soul to be at peace for a second.4CrystalsI carry them with me all the time — literally have one right here. It’s a rose quartz. It’s good energy, love and happiness. I genuinely believe that they help you tap into a certain frequency. And certain crystals can help protect you, so if you’re out and somebody’s not necessarily being kind, carrying that crystal on you may help them not want to be in your personal space.5My Grandma’s House in North CarolinaThat is my safe haven. It always has been ever since I was younger, even before I moved to L.A. It’s the house that my grandmother grew up in, it’s the house that my mom grew up in. And it’s the house where we have all of our family gatherings. I’m grateful that I have that place to be able to go back to whenever I feel as though I just need a break.6‘The Midnight Gospel’I’ve been so into animated series lately. This one is tied to spirituality. The character’s name is Clancy, and it’s kind of like them in the afterlife, going back on Earth to help people understand the true meaning of life — because they know what’s really happening behind the scenes and in the universe. It’s about grief, it’s about forgiveness, it’s about healing, it’s about family and your relationship with your mom and cherishing our loved ones before it’s too late.7‘MJ: The Musical’ on BroadwayI’ve seen it three times so far. And it is just so stinking good. My favorite artist growing up, outside of Aaliyah, was Michael Jackson. Fun fact: We’re a day apart, our birthdays, so I used to say that we’re almost birthday twins. I admire him so much. His dedication, his motivation, the way he approached his craft. Being able to see his story told in that light on Broadway — I was so moved, and I keep going back and bringing people.8‘Blonde’Frank Ocean has always had a huge impact on me, and “Blonde” specifically. That album, for me, symbolizes everything that it means to come of age — the heartbreak, the finding yourself. I’ve had a lot of beautiful moments while listening to those songs. That album is a classic and I still listen it at least three times a month.9‘Homecoming’During quarantine when I was feeling so low, and I was like, “Am I never going to work again?” I distracted myself with watching “Homecoming” to make myself feel motivated and be like, “Oh yeah, everything is going to work out.” Any time that I have to get ready for press or pump myself up to get in a good mood, I play Beyoncé.10RamenWhenever I feel down, I get ramen. There’s a ramen spot that’s five minutes from my house that I honestly abuse the heck out of because I’m always over there. I feel like my friends are probably tired of me constantly suggesting to go get ramen when they ask what we want for lunch. But they’ll be fine. More

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    ‘Succession’: 5 Questions We Have Heading Into the Finale

    Will a Roy sibling emerge victorious? Is the Shivorce off? And what about American democracy? Here are some plot lines we are hoping to see resolved.With few exceptions, the hit HBO series “Succession” has followed the “Seinfeld” model of “no hugging, no learning,” as the ultra-privileged Roy siblings seek to replace their late father, Logan (Brian Cox), at the top of the Waystar Royco media empire.For some reason — despite their narcissism, recklessness and stunning lack of personal growth — we really care about what happens to them and their lackeys anyway. Who will emerge victorious? And at what personal cost?Now, with the 90-minute series finale set to air on Sunday, we seem poised to receive some kind of answer, as the long corporate death match winds to an end. But before it does, the show still has plenty of questions to answer.Can even a supersized conclusion cover them all? Here are several we would like to see addressed.What will America decide?In hopes of helping secure their own leadership positions, Kendall and Roman Roy (Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin) directed Waystar’s right-wing news network ATN to call victory for the far-right presidential candidate Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), who indicated he would squash the GoJo deal. But those burned ballots in Milwaukee mean the election is still contested, and the Democratic candidate, Daniel Jiménez (Elliot Villar), still has a shot at the White House. How long will the count drag on? Will we see a resolution?Whatever the outcome, the top Waystar brass are vulnerable. If the Roys’ motivations for calling the election for Mencken come to light, ATN may not survive. (Then again, real-world parallels suggest it might.) Perhaps no one is so vulnerable as Tom, who as the head of ATN may once again be at risk of becoming the sacrificial lamb, a fate he barely escaped during the company’s cruise line scandal.The far-right candidate Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) indicated he would squash the GoJo deal if elected president. Now that looks far from certain.Macall B. Polay/HBOThe finale may need a significant time jump to wrap all of this up. As for the lasting damage of the assault on American democracy? That may be a tough one for any single TV episode to parse.What will the board decide?Logan once said that life was a “fight for a knife in the mud.” If his children want to control whatever company emerges from the Waystar-GoJo negotiations — wresting it back from the tech mogul Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) — they need to escalate their efforts, fast (and bring a gun to that knife fight).None of the Roy siblings have secure positions or strong advocates. Kendall thought backing Mencken would ensure his later help in stopping the GoJo sale, which would help the Roy children keep the company. But Mencken seems poised to disregard that promise. Nor does Mencken seem to respect either of the co-C.E. Bros: Roman lost whatever currency he had after his meltdown at Logan’s funeral. (Mencken calls him the “Grim Weeper.”) Kendall lost his with his obsequious approach to negotiation.As things now stand, Mencken is considering approving GoJo’s acquisition of Waystar if an American chief executive is attached, and neither of the brothers would make Matsson’s shortlist. Their sister, Shiv (Sarah Snook), thinks she is in line, but Matsson hasn’t agreed to that. If all Matsson wants is a useful pawn, he might be looking at Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), who is dedicated to the work and flexible in his loyalties, or Greg (Nicholas Braun), who will be easy to manipulate.However the deal shakes out, there’s no guarantee Matsson and the board want a member of the Roy family at all. They have plenty of reason not to. Given all the familial infighting and rash decision-making, the board could decide to install someone with real experience — maybe Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) or Stewy (Arian Moayed).Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Shiv (Snook) still have a lot to sort out between them, not least of all the fact that Shiv is very pregnant. David M. Russell/HBOAre Shiv and Tom salvageable?Put another way, is the Shivorce off? Put still another way, can Shiv ever have it all — a high-powered career and a functional family? Whatever she does, she might have to pick some goals and commit. She is so busy flip-flopping on her various positions that it’s hard to know where she really stands.For example, is Shiv really so repulsed by Mencken? Or do her values lean left only when they don’t interfere with her personal gain? Does Shiv want the GoJo deal only if it allows her to become chief executive, or will she support it under other leadership? Shiv assures Matsson that her impending motherhood is a nonissue — the way she describes it, she might as well put the kid up for adoption. But does she really want to follow in the footsteps of her neglectful, abusive father?Shiv needs to make these decisions — about the person and the parent she wants to be — before she can consider reconciliation with her estranged husband, Tom; otherwise their relationship will be doomed by its toxic dynamics, however the corporate and political gamesmanship plays out.Will Kendall’s past run him over?In each season finale so far, Kendall has had to come to terms, on some level, with the drowning death of a waiter he helped cause at his sister’s wedding. The news of his involvement has yet to become public; if or when it does, it will be a doozy, though at this point “when” seems more likely than “if.”His siblings know the truth; he confessed to them at the end of Season 3. Cousin Greg is also privy to a few details since it was he who connected Kendall with the waiter. And Marcia (Hiam Abbas) and her son, Amir (Darius Homayoun), who were present during the aftermath of the accident, are a threat to Kendall’s alibi.Kendall (Strong) has big secrets that may come back to wreak havoc on his plan to take over Waystar. Macall B. Polay/HBOAnd then there is Logan’s former bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson), who helped cover it up. This might be why Kendall was so concerned in Episode 9 to learn that Colin was in therapy — and felt the need to let him know that he knew. We haven’t heard much lately about the podcast investigating the curse of the Roy family, but we should remember that whatever confidentiality agreements might be in place, secrets have a way of leaking.Whither Greg?Cousin Greg, a.k.a. the younger Disgusting Brother, sold his soul a long time ago, and it has secured him face time with some of the most important people in the world. But do any of them respect him? (We can answer that ourselves: no.)It might be that their — and our — disregard for Greg is part of the point of “Succession”: He defines failing upward. At first, his disarming meekness made him a good audience surrogate, his mediocrity a good source of comic relief. But then he began to master the skills essential to this rarefied world of relentless ambition, including blackmail, perjury and betrayal. Now he gets invited to every party, though no one quite seems to want him there.This season, he took it to the next level by helping facilitate ATN’s premature call of the election. If it all blows up, he seems unlikely to go down with Tom, not least because he knows where the bodies are buried going back to when Tom ran the cruise division.If Matsson succeeds, he might see the advantage of having a Roy ally who isn’t as contentious as Kendall, Roman or Shiv — a Roy he can control. At the very least, Matsson and Greg make better photo ops together, both being well over 6 feet tall. Leadership positions have been decided over less. More

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    Five Stand-Up Specials for Memorial Day Weekend

    Wanda Sykes, Sarah Silverman, Lewis Black, Zarna Garg and Greg Warren each deliver very funny hours worth your time.Zarna Garg, ‘One in a Billion’(Amazon Prime)Most comedy about the American immigrant family is related from the point of view of the assimilated son or daughter poking fun at the clueless, thick-accented parents. The beauty of our current moment is the many new perspectives on old jokes. In the fertile scene of South Asian comedians, Zarna Garg represents something fresh: the revenge of the Indian mom. She’s heard the jokes about the closed-minded Indian parents forcing their children to go to medical school. Now she fires back forcefully, with enough panache to subvert stereotypes even as she’s fully embracing them. Her ethnic and religious humor (she makes a convincing case for Hindu being the most chill religion) is unapologetically old-fashioned: quick setups, rapid-fire punchlines, her name in giant letters on the set behind her. There’s a genuine warmth behind the slickness. You believe her extreme pride in her daughter going to Stanford just as much as her operatic horror at the fact that she’s studying ceramics. Garg has the kind of presence that powers network sitcoms. Of the recent spate of specials produced by Amazon Prime, tentatively tiptoeing into competition with Netflix, hers is the best.Sarah Silverman, ‘Someone You Love’(Max)Have you ever wondered if porn ruined the Catholic schoolgirl uniform? Or about the relationship between Judaism and diarrhea? Or the many sexual sounds that go into the term “moral compass”? It will not surprise anyone that Sarah Silverman has. These are only some of the scatological and sexual premises she summons up in her new hour (debuting Saturday). Silverman is 52 but looks and sounds just like that virtuosic comic who rocketed to fame in the 1990s. She has evolved, of course, and the virtue of doing so is one of the themes of her characteristically funny special, but it plays a minor role next to bits about masturbation and Hitler. While she’s known for juvenile gags and political humor, what’s also essential to her comedy, and on full display here, is how distinctively loopy she can be. As influential as she has been, no other comic quite captures this aspect. She has one randomly charming bit about how when she comes home, she says hello in a booming voice over and over. “Sparkle peanut,” she tells herself before going onstage, right before an introduction by Mel Brooks, a spiritual forefather.She’s shambling and casual. Sometimes too much so. Did she need to keep in the part where she singled out a guy for leaving his seat, disrupting the flow of a joke? But her special is bracketed by two fun sketches: a final song about bad breath performed with incongruous and committed elegance, and an opening scene with her (fictional) children backstage. She thanks the woman standing next to them, says she has been amazing and adds: “Everyone said, ‘Don’t get a hot nanny.’” Then she pauses for an uncomfortably long silence.Wanda Sykes, ‘I’m an Entertainer’(Netflix)My favorite punchline in the latest special by Wanda Sykes is the title: “I’m an Entertainer.” It sounds banal or direct, but in the context of the joke, which involves her awakening sexuality (she came out as a lesbian after sleeping with men for years), it hits you with a jolt that is surprising and a little unsettling. That’s Sykes at her best. As it happens, Sykes is an old-school entertainer. She can act, improvise, do sketches, host awards shows and whatever else without losing her signature snap. In her stand-up specials, she tends to stick to a recipe consisting of a chunk of sharply topical liberal jokes (hit or miss), some personal bits about amusing tension with her cigarette-wielding French wife and white kids (solidly funny) and a few tense wild cards. Then for the crowd-pleaser, she brings on Esther, the roll of stomach fat she named after the “Good Times” star Esther Rolle. Mouthy, no-nonsense, up for some fun, Esther always gets laughs. But we learn in this new hour that Sykes is considering removing her breasts on the advice of her doctor, who suggested building new ones from tissue from her gut. (Sykes doesn’t explain why.) In other words, Esther is moving neighborhoods and will be close enough to her neck that Sykes worries about getting strangled.Greg Warren, ‘The Salesman’(YouTube)With the kind of puffed-chest intensity you tend to see in high school football coaches and motivational speakers, Greg Warren brags that he was “a big deal in the peanut butter game.” He worked in sales for Jif and shot this hour in Lexington, Ky., because that’s where the company made its products. Maybe he really was a big deal moving jars. Who knows? But after this special, he owns this nutty spread, comedically. Directed by Nate Bargatze, a clean comic of a far mellower temperament, Warren trash-talks rival brands (look out, Peter Pan), does on-brand crowd work (“What kind of peanut butter do you eat?”) and gets political in discussing how Smucker’s bought his old employer. It now owns peanut butter and jelly, he tells us, before adding with a mix of gravity and anxiety, “If they ever get ahold of bread.” By the end, Warren has made another sale: He has done for peanut butter what Jerry Seinfeld did for Pop-Tarts and Jim Gaffigan did for Hot Pockets.Lewis Black, ‘Tragically, I Need You’(YouTube)If a stand-up can tap into or channel the fury of an audience, he can light up a room. But maintaining that anger is tricky. It can curdle into shtick or just wear out its welcome. Lewis Black’s great gift is that behind that dyspeptic front, you could detect a thoughtful, introspective side, a little damaged perhaps. He shows us more of that vulnerable side here, in part because the isolation of the pandemic put him in a reflective mood. The title refers to the audience. Along with swinging sharp political elbows, in defense of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, say, Black beats himself up over past relationships and sings the praises of companionship. He talks about his failed career as a playwright, bringing up theater because “I like to feel the interest of the audience leave the room.” More

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    ‘Bernarda’s Daughters’ Review: Sisters Grieve a Father, and a Home

    In her adaptation of Lorca, Diane Exavier emphasizes the importance of belonging to a place, and how painful it is to consign memories of it to the grave.Federico García Lorca described his oft-adapted “La Casa de Bernarda Alba” simply as a “drama of women in the villages of Spain.” But as the Haitian American playwright Diane Exavier knows, whenever women gather — especially during times of mourning — there is always more at stake.Exavier takes inspiration from Lorca’s work to craft “Bernarda’s Daughters,” but she replaces the tyrannical mother of the original with the oppressive smother of a New York City summer. Bernarda — referred to here as Mommy — is never seen but lets her five daughters cycle through the family home in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush as they watch over their grandmother Florence (Tamara Tunie) and grieve their recently deceased father.Men remain absent in this play as they do in Lorca’s, and their stench lingers. It’s partly a literal stench, represented by bushels of their father’s laundry the daughters must clean before Mommy returns. But more emblematically, it’s a figurative stink, reeking of the unappreciated sacrifices these women make for their men — especially the eldest daughter, Louise (Pascale Armand) — even long after those men are in the ground.Mommy is absent because she’s laying her husband to rest in Haiti, where it’s “cheaper than burying someone in Brooklyn.” Much of “Bernarda’s Daughters” hinges on quips like these, which relay Exavier’s ideas about gentrification. The play rarely comments on the systemic causes of this problem but reminds us of its effects: the deafening drum of construction, the garish view of new high-rises and the proliferation of fancy coffee shops. As Bernarda’s second youngest, Adela (Taji Senior), sourly notes, “It’s a different Brooklyn out there.”The sisters’ loss, then, is not only personal, it’s territorial. And each of Bernarda’s daughters responds differently. Grief makes the high-strung Louise greedier, the noble Harriet (Alana Raquel Bowers) hungrier for love, the ever-amorous Maryse (Malika Samuel) lustier, the righteous Adela quicker to anger, and the naïve Lena (Kristin Dodson) more dissociative, as she takes solace in her beloved reality shows. When the sisters do gather, their banter is humorous and animated. But every so often Exavier has a sister peel off to trudge through a metaphor-laced sermon.The director, Dominique Rider, demonstrates less control over these momentum-stealing soliloquies than he does the more naturalistic dialogue, tamping down the production’s bouncy energy with low-spirited melodrama. And Carlos J. Soto’s bleak scenic design offers little help. His set is an angular cavern of black mesh curtains and obtrusive columns, the opposite of every colorful and crowded Haitian home I’ve known.Abstraction does not serve this work, which ultimately thrives on specificity. Taking cues from island scribes like the Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite and the Jamaican dramatist Sylvia Wynter — whose translation of Lorca largely influenced “Bernarda’s Daughters” — Exavier uses this play to emphasize the importance of belonging to a place, and how painful it is to consign your memories of that place to the grave when its essence disappears. No wonder her characters reel off so many actual street names in the neighborhood — “the garbage all over Rogers,” “the Macy’s on Fulton,” “the grill on Church.” The naming is an act of remembrance, a way to preserve a home.Bernarda’s Daughters Through June 4 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, Manhattan; thenewgroup.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More

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    In ‘Succession,’ the Very Rich Are Very, Very Different

    The HBO drama, which ends on Sunday, updates past rich-people soaps like “Dallas.” But unlike those series, it argues that the problems of the hyper-wealthy inevitably become ours too.On Nov. 21, 1980, more than 83 million people — over three-quarters of the entire American TV viewership — watched “Who Done It?,” the episode of “Dallas” that revealed who shot the love-to-hate-him oil magnate J.R. Ewing. The mystery, which CBS milked for eight solid months, was a consuming obsession, a Texas-sized example of the power of 20th-century TV to focus the world on one thing.On Sunday, HBO’s “Succession” will answer the question (or not) of who inherits the media empire of the late tyrant Logan Roy in front of a viewership of — well, a lot less than 83 million. (The show’s final season premiere had 2.3 million same-day viewers; delayed viewing on streaming brings the total average audience to over 8 million.)Airing its finale to a much more dispersed audience is a fitting end to the saga of a family that got rich off the modern media market, whose final episodes are set against the backdrop of a country that is coming apart.But numbers aside, “Succession” is in many ways the premium-cable, late-capitalist heir to “Dallas,” a prime-time saga that uses delicious dialogue and sibling rivalries to explore the particular nature of wealth in its time. It’s “Dallas” after 40-plus years of wealth concentration and media fragmentation.The “Who Shot J.R.?” sensation was, in retrospect, the high-water mark of mass media’s reach. In 1980, three networks still controlled the entire TV audience, which they would soon have to share with cable. It was also a cultural turning point; prime time was becoming fascinated with the rich just as the Reagan Revolution was beginning.“Succession” is very different from “Dallas” in the details. There are no twangy accents, assassination attempts, cliffhangers or season-long dreams. Its plot turns are simply, devastatingly inevitable: The show sets up conditions, gives its characters motivations and lets them act in their interests. (“Yellowstone” is a closer heir to “Dallas” in both cowboy hats and murder plots.)And if the “Succession” audience is smaller, the money is, pointedly, bigger. Rewatched in 2023, the idea of luxury in “Dallas” looks quaint, almost dowdy. The aesthetic is Texan country club; the Ewing homestead, the size of a decent suburban McMansion, is a toolshed next to the Manhattan aeries, Hamptons manors and Italian villas that the Roys flitter among.“Dallas” was once synonymous with rich-family shenanigans, but its version of wealth was much more modest than the one in “Succession.”CBS, via Everett CollectionSome of this is a matter of modern premium-cable budgets vs. the grind of old-school network-TV production, of course. But it also reflects the changed, distorting nature of modern riches. In 1980, American wealth inequality was still near its postwar lows. Since then, the wealth of the top .01 percent has grown at a rate roughly five times as much as that of the population overall. Today, the very rich are very, very, very richer.The holdings of Waystar Royco — Hollywood studios, cruise lines, newspapers, amusement parks, a king-making right-wing news channel — make Ewing Oil look like a franchise gas station. We know only vaguely how Logan Roy built his empire, but it was enabled partly by the media-consolidation and antitrust deregulation, beginning in the “Dallas”/Reagan era, that allowed his real-life analogues like Rupert Murdoch to make their own piles.Meanwhile, the smaller TV audiences of the cable and streaming age have allowed “Succession” to thrive as a more specific and more niche entertainment. A series in the three-network era had to appeal to tens of millions of people just to stay on the air — “Dallas” needed to serve a crowd-pleasing spread of barbecue. “Succession” can afford to be a rarefied, decadent pleasure, like an ortolan, the deep-fried songbird, eaten whole, that was featured in a memorable Season 1 meal.“Dallas,” like its followers from “Dynasty” through “Empire,” was in the populist soap-opera tradition of letting the audience delight in the woes of rich people. Its characters were like us — jealous, envious, heartbroken — just with more money and less happiness.“Succession” has its crowd-pleasing and universal elements too. Logan was an irresistible brute, able to pack a Shakespeare soliloquy’s worth of emotion into a two-word curse. The Roy children — Kendall, Roman, Shiv and their half brother, Connor — have developed a survivors’ bond and survivalist cutthroat instincts; one arm joins the group hug, the other holds a dagger. At root, the series’s family themes are talk-show simple: Hurt people hurt people.But its voice, as set by the creator, Jesse Armstrong, is arch and referential; its details demand a range of knowledge or at least the willingness to Google. As Logan is laid to rest in a mausoleum that he bought for $5 million from a dot-com pet-supply mogul — one last cold and expensive residence — Shiv jokes, “Cat food Ozymandias.”Kieran Culkin in “Succession,” which laid Logan to rest in its penultimate episode.Macall B. Polay/HBOLike “Mad Men” before it, “Succession” is a drama that also happens to be the funniest thing on TV any given week. (Its earliest episodes tilted the other way, with the rhythms of a comedy disguised as a premium-TV drama.)But its showmanship is informed by a caustic clarity about the toxic business culture Logan Roy built. “He fed a certain kind of meagerness in men,” Logan’s brother, Ewan, says in a tender and damning eulogy at his funeral. Waystar’s offerings — mass entertainment and right-wing propaganda — have had America on a sugar and poison binge.Now, it’s time for the purge. I once wrote that “Succession” viewers “can enjoy it knowing that we have no stake, except for the tiny fact that people like the Roys run the world.” This final season has emphasized that that is a very big “except.”“Succession” has long hinted at the Roys’ willingness to play footsie with dark political forces for ratings and influence. Waystar’s right-wing news network, ATN, leaves a popular commentator on the air despite his Nazi sympathies. The family backs a far-right presidential candidate, Jeryd Mencken, who voices openness to the ideas of Hitler and Franco. (Mencken fittingly shares a surname with the American writer who said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”)Late in the final season, the close presidential election is disrupted by a fire, apparently started by Mencken supporters, that incinerates thousands of ballots for his opponent in liberal Milwaukee. In exchange for Mencken’s regulatory cooperation in a struggle over control of the company, ATN declares the handsome fascist the winner, legitimizing his claim to power amid a legal challenge. The result leads to riots. But it’s great for ratings.As for American democracy — well, good luck! Part of the fantasy of past rich-family sagas was that none of the drama affected you, even by implication. When Ewings did each other dirty in the oil business, you were never asked to imagine yourself, somewhere offscreen, seeing your gas prices go up.“Succession,” on the other hand, argues that the problems of today’s hyper-rich inevitably become ours because they have so much influence and so little sense of responsibility. (Its main exception is the Pierce family, the owners of a rival media empire, whose blue-blood noblesse oblige comes across as patronizing and ineffectual.) We are swamped in the wake of their yachts and chopped up by the propeller blades, even if the billionaires, sitting on the top deck, scarcely feel a bump.And while the damaged characters are fascinating, even pitiable, there’s no one among the Roys or their enablers worth rooting for. As with “Game of Thrones,” if you think the important thing is who finally ends up in the big chair, you’re missing the point.The Roy children, including, from left, Roman (Culkin), Connor (Alan Ruck), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Kendall (Jeremy Strong) share a survivors’ bond and survivalist instincts.Macall B. Polay/HBOThere are no heroes on the horizon. Mencken’s election opponent is a bloodless centrist who mewls about “process” while the country burns. (The election episode and its aftermath felt like a vicious inversion of a “West Wing” good-government fantasy.) In the streets, people are taking action, but all they can do is rage.Throughout the series, the constant has been that however the Roys might suffer, emotionally or on the corporate org chart, they never faced true material consequences. They might be more calculated than F. Scott Fitzgerald’s careless Tom and Daisy Buchanan, but they still smashed up things and creatures and retreated into their money.Up to now, at least. But the penultimate episode suggests that things could take a turn.As Logan is laid to rest, in a Manhattan funeral befitting a president, the streets are choked with crowds protesting Mencken’s smoke-scented victory. The menace circles closer: sirens in the distance, protesters banging on a limo, explosions rattling guests arriving at the St. Regis for a post-funeral reception. The Roys’ force field holds, but it quivers.In the final scene, Roman, having botched his shot at chief executive by having a breakdown at Logan’s funeral and misjudging Mencken’s loyalty, wanders outside, where a throng of demonstrators are coming up the street. He hops the barricade to pick a fight, gets hit in the face and is nearly trampled.The scene is disorienting after four seasons inside the protective bubble of wealth. It suggests that the Roys, fumbling to seize their father’s legacy, may have unleashed something beyond their control, capable of hurting even them.I still doubt that “Succession,” being “Succession,” will end with any true, proportional comeuppance. But it might just yet leave a mark. More