Eliana Willis

Amr Alfiky/The New York Times“What a year this week has been,” said every American every week of 2020. But this was election week, and a long one at that, so the phrase has maybe never been more accurate.To infuse a little levity, here are highlights from this week’s late-night talk shows → More

Season 2, Episode 2: ‘The Passenger’A big part of what makes the “Star Wars” universe so enchanting is that all its crazy creatures, robots and spacecraft have a real physical presence on-screen. Starting with the first movie in 1977, the Lucasfilm effects team has worked magic with practical effects, creating worlds where the vehicles sputter and shake, the droids creak and clank, and the aliens cast imposing shadows. Everyone and everything seems bound by the laws of gravity. That makes the action sequences more nail-biting and gives the comedy more slapstick sting.This week’s episode, is pretty much 40 minutes of chase scenes and fights, interrupted by some of the series’s funniest gags to date. Directed by Peyton Reed (best-known for the buoyant teen comedy “Bring It On” and the wonderfully imaginative Marvel movie “Ant-Man”) and written by Jon Favreau, this chapter is a charmer, primarily because so many of its thrills and jokes are rooted in that essential “Star Wars” physicality: from the bulky enormity of Mando’s ship to the adorable tininess of the Child.If nothing else, this episode compensates for the Season 2 premiere’s relative lack of Baby Yoda by filling nearly every spare second with adorable toddling and cute reaction shots.Sometimes, Reed and Favreau build exciting TV out of almost nothing. In the opening sequence, the Mandalorian and the Child are speeding back to Mos Eisley when they get waylaid by bandits. This sequence features a lot of the lo-fi props, effects and stunts that make the “Star Wars” universe so believable, as real ropes and hunks of metal fly at characters’ heads.The scene then ends with some good, dry goofing as Mando trades his jetpack to the Child’s would-be kidnapper before remotely activating the device and sending the bad guy hurtling to his doom. The fatal crash happens deep in the background — like seeing Wile E. Coyote fall to the bottom of a canyon in a Road Runner cartoon.Mando looks at the Child and shrugs. Then the pack settles gently to the ground near our hero before abruptly flopping over. It’s the perfect punchline.In a broad sense, one could argue this whole scene is unnecessary given that it has very little to do with the rest of the episode (beyond reinforcing the idea that the Child is still in grave danger). But it’s a hoot, and it sets the tone for the next half-hour of derring-do and deadpan comedy.Most of the episode is about an assignment Din Djarin takes as a favor to Peli Motto. A humanoid frog-beast — referred to only as “the passenger” or as “frog lady” — has a jar of her eggs to take to a new planet, where her husband is waiting to fertilize them and save their species. The catch is that Mando’s ship, the Razor Crest, can’t go into hyperspace on the trip, lest the jump scramble those eggs (so to speak). So they have to creep along, avoiding pirates and warlords.There are further complications. For one thing, Din can’t understand a word his passenger says. For another, the Child takes one look at her giant jar of unfertilized eggs and sees a bunch of delicious snacks. Reed and Favreau adeptly blend the genuine tension of the passenger’s situation — as she strives to preserve and protect the last of her kind — with the darkly comic sight of Baby Yoda’s occasionally sneaking a hand into the jar and popping one of the eggs into his little mouth. (By the end of the episode, he seems to have depleted about a third of the stock. And then he eats one more, in a hilarious pre-credits stinger.)The biggest problem the crew faces is that they run into a couple of X-wing pilots representing the nascent Republic. Because the Mandalorian has outstanding warrants — and because he’s not sure he can trust the new folks in charge — he escapes to the nearest planet in a white-knuckle chase that has him swooping through canyons and hiding in an icy cave.From there, everything quickly goes hinky. The Razor Crest cracks through the ice and falls into a lower chamber of the caverns. And that’s where the spider-monsters attack.The payoff to “The Passenger” is a bit like the end to a shaggy dog story. Just when the Mandalorian’s ship is about to be overrun by thousands of these spider things — including one nearly the size of the ship — the Republic patrol finally catches up with its quarry, blasts the creepy-crawlies to smithereens and gives Mando the space-cop equivalent of, “We’re going to let you off with a warning, but be sure to get your taillight fixed.”It wouldn’t be a stretch to find a theme in all this breathless action and arch humor. The passenger has offspring to protect, just as the Mandalorian has the Child, the big spider boss has its throng (which also hatch from eggs) and the Republic has its fledgling government. Everything of value is fragile.But let’s be honest: What makes this episode so fun is that it feels like playtime. This is Reed, Favreau, the cast and the crew having a blast dreaming up cool “Star Wars” scenes and making them look as polished and realistic as a Ralph McQuarrie painting. It’s pure, pulp, made with love and care.This Is the WayFor anyone who wondered what the Mandalorian was going to do with the big hunk of dragon meat he secured to his speeder last week: In this episode he delivers it to Peli Motto, who has her droids roast it. (But not too much. She likes her dragon medium-rare.)When Mando sidles into a Mos Eisley cantina to find Peli, she’s in the middle of a game with a giant bug she alternately calls “Dr. Mandible” and “Zorak.” Assuming that neither of those is the creature’s real name, the implication of her “Zorak” crack is that “Space Ghost” exists in the “Star Wars” universe.The effects team really plays up the frog-ness of the passenger, especially when the spider-things come creeping in as she’s bathing in a spring. She quickly uses her prehensile tongue to grab her bundle of clothes, then when she can’t flee fast enough on two legs she gets down on all fours and hops.Whenever I watch “The Mandalorian” with my wife and kids, the thing that freaks us out most is whenever anyone lets go of the Child and he tumbles to the ground. We all scream at the screen simultaneously, “Do not drop Baby Yoda!” More

Audiobook: ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’I’ve been listening to the audiobook of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y. The author’s steady, reassuring voice is the perfect vehicle to learn about the possibilities for a more reciprocal relationship between industrialized humans and the natural world. More

Al Roker, the co-host and weatherman of NBC’s “Today” show for more than 20 years, has prostate cancer, he revealed on Friday, announcing he would briefly leave the program for treatment.Mr. Roker, 66, shared the news during the show’s morning broadcast. He said he learned of the cancer after a routine medical checkup in September when his doctor found an elevated prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, in his blood work. A subsequent M.R.I. and biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.He said he wanted to share the news publicly to highlight that prostate cancer is common, saying that one in seven African-American men receive the diagnosis in their lifetime.“It’s a good news, bad news kind of thing,” he said during the broadcast. “The good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, according to the American Cancer Society. About one in nine men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis during his lifetime, the organization said. About six cases in 10 are diagnosed in men who are 65 years old and up, and the average age of diagnosis is 66.“If you detect it early, this is a really treatable disease, and it’s why I wanted to take you along my journey so we can all learn together how to educate and protect the men in our lives,” Mr. Roker said.He said he would have surgery next week to have his prostate removed by Dr. Vincent Laudone.“Fortunately, his cancer appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate,” Dr. Laudone said on the show. “But because it’s more aggressive, we wanted to treat it and we settled on removing the prostate.”Mr. Roker said, “We’ll just wait and see, and hopefully in about two weeks, I’ll be back.”Viewers have followed Mr. Roker’s weather reports, special features and amiable morning banter on the “Today” show since 1996, as well as previous medical treatments. He had surgeries on his right shoulder, left hip and right knee in the last four years, according to NBC. During his long tenure on morning TV, he has become a familiar fixture in many homes, reporting on the daily weather, natural disasters and the Olympics, co-hosting holiday specials and writing several books. More

Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘You Rig Some, You Lose Some’Stephen Colbert opened “The Late Show” with a somber, emotional speech on Thursday, accusing President Trump of trying to “poison American democracy” with his lies about the vote count and evidence-free claims that the election was being stolen.“By the way, if Donald Trump is right — if Joe Biden did pull the strings behind the scenes in Republican states like Arizona and Georgia while coordinating with Democratic states like Pennsylvania and Nevada and Wisconsin and Michigan and throwing in the red herring of letting the Republicans keep the Senate and gain a few seats in the House while just barely removing Donald Trump — wow!” Colbert said. “I mean, kudos to that level of interstate coordination. I mean, anyone who could accomplish that many things at once right now really would be the president we need during a global pandemic.”[embedded content]“The Trump folks still insist they have a chance, which may be true, but even Republican-friendly estimates say Trump has a steep uphill battle to close the gap. And the only thing more challenging than a steep uphill battle for Donald Trump would be a steep downhill waddle.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The race being so close in Georgia was a big surprise, but Pennsylvania — the reason Joe Biden is strong in Pennsylvania, a state that voted Republican last time, is because he’s from there and they know him. It’s the same reason Trump lost New York.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“At 9:12 this morning the soon-to-be-former president tweeted, ‘Stop the count!’ And I guess nobody listened, because half an hour later he retweeted his own tweet: ‘Stop the count! Why are they still counting? I tweeted twice to stop.’ He also wrote, ‘Stop the fraud,’ which should have been a note to self.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Here’s a compromise: How about they count the votes and then they stop counting the votes, like the old days.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I’m not saying Trump is in trouble, but he was just sent straight to voice mail by the My Pillow guy.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, nothing is definite, but the outcome feels pretty inevitable right now. Vladimir Putin is like, ‘Oh well, you rig some, you lose some.’” — JIMMY FALLON“He’s also been urging his followers to take to the streets, and they’re showing up like coronavirus at a White House Rose Garden event.” — TREVOR NOAH“I mean, seriously, I can’t believe we were all terrified that Trump supporters would coordinate a civil war and yet these guys can’t even agree on a slogan to shout in the streets.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Suing America Edition)“When Hillary lost, she disappeared into the woods, but Trump starts losing, he’s dragging voters one by one onto the witness stand, although knowing Trump, he’s probably just hustling for a big settlement. [as Trump:] ‘I’m suing because I should be president, that’s why I’m here — but for 500 grand we can forget this whole thing ever happened. Three hundred thousand. Two hundred and fifty, my final offer. Fifty thousand. I’ll pay you, but only $20. Art of the deal.’” — TREVOR NOAH“The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. And you know he’s serious because he sent his best lawyer — who was duped by Borat into almost showing his penis on camera — to Pennsylvania to handle this.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And let the lawsuits begin. I really cannot think of a more fitting ending to this presidency than him suing America.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know you’re in trouble when your master plan starts with ‘Get me Rudy Giuliani on the phone.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Dude, you’re behind in Michigan. I’m worried you’re so confident because you think this is golf rules: ‘[as Trump] Just saw the numbers out of New York and Massachusetts. Very encouraging; way below par.’” — SETH MEYERS“Of course he’s suing. I get the feeling when Trump didn’t get the Christmas gift he wanted as a kid he was like, ‘Better lawyer up, Nana.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth Watching“The Tonight Show” invited audience members to share their special talents, including one young woman’s impersonations of celebrities stubbing their toes.Also, Check This OutTake a break from the real world this weekend with nine new essay collections, novels and other enthralling reads. More

This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Bobby Ball had a look that fit his slapstick humor. He was a slightly stocky 5-foot-3, with a head of dark, bushy hair, a similarly impressive mustache, a gaptoothed grin and a habit of snapping his red suspenders. His signature line, addressed to his comedy partner, Tommy Cannon, was “Rock on, Tommy!” The two were among Britain’s biggest television stars in the 1980s.Mr. Ball died on Oct. 28 at a hospital in London. He was 76. His manager, Phil Duke, who confirmed the death, said Mr. Ball had been admitted to the hospital because of breathing problems and tested positive for Covid-19.“Cannon & Ball,” which ran from 1979 to 1988, drew as many as 20 million viewers on a Saturday night. The show alternated between goofy comedy bits — about things like unpredictably reclining airline seats, obsessive-compulsive bartenders and a “West Side Story” gang encounter involving a very old man — and earnest musical numbers.Between skits, Mr. Ball and Mr. Cannon would put on tuxedos and sincerely sing well-known songs, often romantic ballads, like “Send In the Clowns” or “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”Toward the end of the show’s run, Mr. Ball, unhappy about his bad habits (drinking, womanizing and a propensity toward violence, the press said), turned to religion. He wrote “Christianity for Beginners” and began teaching vicars how to incorporate humor into their sermons.Robert Harper was born on Jan. 28, 1944, in Oldham, England, a manufacturing town near Manchester. Although he showed some interest in show business in his youth, he took a traditional job after high school: welder at a local factory.But in his spare time, he sang at cabarets around northern England. When a new welder, Thomas Derbyshire, joined the company, the two became friends. Soon they were a singing duo, calling themselves Bobby and Stevie Rhythm, then the Sherrell Brothers, then the Harper Brothers. Later they changed their surnames and became Cannon and Ball.The duo once said that they decided to expand their act to include jokes because comics were being paid three pounds per hour (more than $6 back then) more than singers.After their series ended, the two returned to television as shopping mall security guards on the sitcom “Plaza Patrol” (1991), but the show lasted only six episodes. Mr. Ball continued to act, mostly on television, evolving into grandfather and father-in-law roles.He was a regular on “Mount Pleasant” (2011-17), a family comedy, and did three episodes of “Last of the Summer Wine” (1973-2010), the long-running BBC series about retired men in Yorkshire.Mr. Ball’s last screen appearances — both in 2019 — were in “The Cockfields,” a mini-series about a family birthday celebration on the Isle of Wight, and “Not Going Out,” a series on which he had a recurring role as the feckless father of the star (Lee Mack).He and Mr. Cannon also continued to work together onstage. They played Las Vegas as recently as 2018.Mr. Ball and Joan Lynn married in 1964 and divorced in 1970. His survivors include his second wife, Yvonne Nugent, whom he married in 1974; two sons, Robert Harper Jr. and Darren Harper, now a comedy team, from his first marriage; and a daughter, Joanne Ball. According to The Oldham Times, his hometown newspaper, there were also 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.He didn’t plan to retire. “If no promoters booked me, I’d be out there busking,” Mr. Ball told The Mirror in 2015, referring to British sidewalk performers who sing or dance for spare change.Entertaining people had been an honor, he said, adding, “That’s all I want written on my gravestone — ‘He gave us a laugh.’” More

Season 4, Episode 7: ‘Lay Away’What if Michael Corleone hadn’t been up for the job?That’s the question that hangs over “The Godfather” after Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), the don of the Corleone crime family, dies of a heart attack and Michael (Al Pacino) takes the helm. At that point in the film, there’s ample evidence that Michael is a shrewd and coolheaded decision maker, but he’s also the youngest of Vito’s sons and the most removed from the business, having served as a Marine in World War II and started a life with a woman who wants nothing to do with it. He is thrown into a feud among the “Five Families” of New York and coolly arranges a coordinated series of killings during a baptism.“Fargo” wonders what might have happened if Michael Corleone had been every bit as vulnerable as his adversaries might have assumed. Because the Faddas don’t have a Michael. The Faddas have a Sonny (James Caan) in Gaetano, a macho thug who acts impulsively and violently to any perceived threat, and they have a Fredo (John Cazale) in Josto, whose weakness manifests itself as lethal ineptitude. Josto is the capo, but he’s incapable of confronting problems directly, leading to a lot of behind-the-scenes machinations that wind up blowing up in his face. He’s like a would-be puppet master who keeps tangling up the strings.There haven’t been many deep connections between this season of “Fargo” and the Coens’ film, beyond maybe the “Minnesota nice” qualities of Oraetta Mayflower, who’s a conspicuous out-of-towner in its Kansas City setting. But Josto embodies a common Coen type: the criminal dilettante who is undone by his own pettiness and amateurism. He and Gaetano are both sources of senseless violence, all of which has softened the Faddas’ edge over the Cannons, who are outmanned and at a severe cultural disadvantage. And this week, Josto’s mistakes continued to pile up.In this mostly lively episode, Josto and Loy are frequently juxtaposed for their leadership styles and their decision-making, which usually result in forcing Loy to try to sort through Josto’s missteps. For example, Josto’s plan to have one of his henchmen execute Loy’s son Satchel predictably failed, but his solution is to dig a deeper hole for himself. He tells Loy the boy is dead, pinning the blame on Gaetano’s right hand, Constant Calamita, in the hope that the Cannons will take on the ugly business of killing Calamita themselves. Never mind that the lie about Satchel’s death will almost certainly result in pushing Loy to kill the Italian boy they adopted as collateral in the original deal between the two families. Josto’s true war is with his brother, and he wants the Cannons to fight it for him.But Loy is a pragmatist. In fact, the only time he flashes violent here is in defense of his own pragmatism, when Leon suggests killing Gaetano and going to war with the Faddas. He seems to believe that Satchel is dead, but he can’t bring himself to strangle the boy’s Italian counterpart in the bathroom, and he sees some value in simply letting Gaetano go free, sensing that the brute will be more inclined to attack Josto than him. He also offers Swanee and Zelmare two tickets to Philly, which settles their beef over the heist nonviolently and neutralizes yet another threat against the Cannons.Yet there are limits to Loy’s power and success that are out of his control. One small, crucial moment in the episode is when Loy encounters the Diners’ Club billboard on the side of a building. He had an idea that would have not only made him extravagantly wealthy but also given him access to legitimate power, a safe exit from the volatility of the alternate economy. That idea was plucked by white bankers of much higher cultural standing, but much more limited imagination. He can make all the right decisions, but there’s a hard ceiling on how far he can go.“They can’t rise to our level, so they’ve got to drag us down to theirs,” Loy grouses to Odis about the Faddas. “If I get in the dirt like them, it means they were right the whole time.” In an episode that sets Loy and Josto up for comparison, there can be no doubt that Loy is the craftier of the two, with good instincts and a fuller understanding of what power he does and does not have. But that billboard is a reminder that he may be doomed to fail no matter what he does. The Faddas may fumble their way to legitimacy one day. The game is rigged against the Cannons.3 Cent StampsDidn’t catch any Coen references here, though the image of Gaetano, the bloodied brute tied to the chair is reminiscent of the unnamed screaming fat man in “Miller’s Crossing,” who had also been kidnapped and beaten.It seemed as if Oraetta had a good enough look at the “concerned citizen” letter to know its source, but she bakes up a batch of deadly macaroons for Dr. Harvard regardless. Perhaps she thinks he’s too suspicious of her to be trusted long term. (Again, she’s still on the periphery of the main story, along with Ethelrida, but perhaps they’ll get pulled in soon.)Odis cannot keep from getting kicked around by the Faddas, the Cannons and Deafy, all of whom have some form of leverage over him. But at this point, the character is defined too much by his tics and his compromised situation. He’s not compelling enough as a person.Loy’s experiences with racism give him perspective on the grifter as the American criminal type. “He don’t rob you so much as trick you into robbing yourself,” he says. “Because in America, people want to believe. They got that dream.” When the American dream is denied to you, you can perhaps see the scam more clearly. More