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    Katt Williams Wants to Show You the Receipts

    After setting the internet aflame earlier this year when he slammed several other comedians in a viral interview, he plans to say more of what’s on his mind in a rare live special on Netflix.In the crowded landscape of athlete podcasts, “Club Shay Shay,” hosted by the retired N.F.L. star Shannon Sharpe, mostly served sports fans and observers of Black Hollywood since it started in 2020 with interviews with DaBaby and Deion Sanders.That was until Katt Williams appeared on the show in January and for nearly three hours delivered an incendiary, rollicking and, at points, curiously uplifting interview that pervaded the internet like nothing else this year. Williams accused other big-name comedians of stealing jokes and movie roles from him, riffed on why partying with Diddy (or Jeffrey Epstein or Harvey Weinstein) is a bad idea, asserted that he read 3,000 books a year as a child and claimed that at 52, he was capable of running a 40-yard dash in less than 5 seconds.The interview has been viewed more than 67 million times on YouTube, numbers that put it on par with Joe Rogan’s blazing episode with Elon Musk, the industry high-water mark for video podcasts. Its most outrageous moments have been shared, excerpted and spoofed on so many other platforms that even that figure understates its impact. According to Williams, who said he wrote out his part of the dialogue in advance, it’s just what happens when he sets the record straight.“I’m quite likely to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” he said during the interview.Beyond raising Sharpe’s numbers, the spot helped Williams move tickets to his “Dark Matter” tour and got the PGA interested in hosting him at T.P.C. Sawgrass, the golf course that serves as a playground for pros and that most others will see only by plugging in “PGA Tour Golf” into their PlayStations. On the course, in between shots, he says he made his nuclear-option remarks carefully, responding to rumors — in some cases, told by people he spoke up about — that have dogged him for years about drug use, erratic behavior and arrests (though, he said, no convictions). “I thought that I had worked out a way of breaking the internet, and I felt pretty confident,” he said with a Mr. Rogers level of thoughtfulness. “So I wrote it kind of like a one-man movie, with the intention of its outcome. And — —”“You’re great, Katt,” a man trills as he passes in his golf cart.“Thank you so much,” Williams replies, then pulls to a stop.When Dave Chappelle responded to the “Club Shay Shay” podcast by saying, “Why are you drawing ugly pictures of us?” Williams said it stung.Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York Times“If I let it go at this point, they can actually rewrite history,” he says. Few things unnerve him more than a poor chronicling of facts. That’s probably because few people are better at weaving narratives that seem too incredible not to be true, like when he describes how he taught himself to fall asleep in exactly 59 seconds. (“It wasn’t something I knew I needed but it’s changed my [expletive] life!”)The things that make Katt Williams such a great raconteur — he is diligent about numbers, inexhaustible in his curiosity and meticulous about his delivery — have made him a persistent presence in comedy since he emerged from the standup world over 30 years ago, through regular appearances on the improv sketch show “Wild ’N Out” and as a scene-stealing dervish in movies like “Friday After Next.” That his improbable rise from homelessness to one of the most prolific, and profitable, comics of his generation isn’t looked on as a feat of craft and yeoman effort, well, that was a record that needed straightening. Williams grabbed even the furthest corners of the internet to do so, and now that he’s got everyone’s attention he is gearing up for the ultimate told-you-so — “Woke Foke,” set to air globally on Saturday. It’s Netflix’s second-ever live special after Chris Rock’s last year. Williams, who does not work his material in clubs partly because of the looming threat of joke-stealing, has been prepping his material on a 100-date arena tour where audiences were not asked to lock away their phones. It seems a sure way to spoil the act he and Netflix are banking big on. It’s also a show of extreme faith in his current set, and will make for a high-wire debut for the roughly 25 percent of new material he’ll deliver live in Los Angeles.“He’s one of the most exceptional improvisational comedians of our time,” says Robbie Praw, Netflix’s vice president of standup and comedy formats. “He does often change his material close to tapings, which is a key reason why he was the perfect person to be our second live special. Because there is something super exciting about that. When there’s no script, there’s no net.”Or as Williams himself puts it, “The benefit of Katt Williams live is that you don’t, in any way, know what he’s going to say.”THOUGH HE USUALLY PLAYS golf alongside the retired athletes he’s friends with or someone from the tour crew, today Williams plays this round effectively solo. An assistant named Rhonda trails him in a separate cart driven by a cigar-smoking bodyguard. Later, he calls out to Rhonda, who dutifully takes photos when Williams points up at the trees that rim a rippling green, where two bald eagles have alighted on branches near their nest. “Look at that,” Williams marvels through an open-mouthed grin.Over the round, he’ll point out a peregrine falcon swooping in to feed, stop in the middle of a fairway to show Rhonda and a caddie a woodpecker that has gotten thisclose to severing a branch, and sprint across one tee box to stand under a magnolia tree and catch its wafting perfume. He’s got dozens of them lining his 100-acre farm, he says.That sprint to the magnolia, and several more full-speed runs from fairway back to the golf cart, each have the same track-star form he showed in an Emmy-winning cameo on “Atlanta” that ended with his character bolting from the house where he’d kept both his girlfriend and an alligator illegally. Williams displayed that same running form when he showed up at the Dallas Cowboys’ facility in February and ran a 40-yard dash in 4.97 seconds. His claim on Sharpe’s podcast seemed suspect until Williams clocked the time in front of an audience, while wearing Dior sneakers.Williams left his home in Ohio at 13 over a religious dispute with his parents and landed in Miami, where he says he supported himself stealing car radios and cleaning restaurants. His stint in a homeless encampment introduced him to addicts, many of whom had once been high-functioning professionals. The extent to which those stories informed his reaction to the drug rumors is in the numbers, too. He still does 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups a day. That 40-yard-dash time, it’s denial through demonstration.To those who accuse him of using, he says, “at some point, even as an idiot, you’re going to have to acknowledge that these drugs should be taking some toll on me. At some point, I shouldn’t be better and faster and stronger because of them.”Williams has an allegiance to numbers typically reserved for athletes and actuaries, and it’s apparent in the quantifiable way he breaks down his sets. “I try to write the seven to 10 most [expletive] things that I think,” he says, “and I try to make that into the comedy show.” An hourlong special comprises 10 to 12 stand-alone pieces, which usually leaves him looking to add a bit or two as he’s writing. For this run, he says he’s needed to pare down what started as a 90-minute set.On the road, Williams hones an act by watching footage of the previous night for the first 30 or so dates. “My job is to let this guy know, ‘Hey, you’re looking old out there, like, you going to work this stage?’” he says, adding that he’s most often not refining the words but the delivery — a bigger gesture, a different tilt of his head.Williams has been writing and performing and refining in this way for 37 years, ever since he won a standup competition in Ruskin, Fla., at 16. The prize was a five-minute opening slot on a tour that featured Richard Jeni, Jeff Foxworthy and Dan Whitney, later known as Larry the Cable Guy.“He respects the craft,” says Mo’Nique, who is touring with Williams for the first time on “Dark Matter.” “He respects the ones that came before him. He respects those doors being open. He respects the obligation of, the craft of being a comedian.”HIS REVERENCE FOR JOURNEYMEN COMICS, those who prove their mettle on live stages night after night, fueled many of the shots Williams took during the Sharpe interview at funnymen who no longer work the circuit, or those who had gotten specials without a lengthy road history. He felt assured in his criticisms, and that there wouldn’t be effective retaliation, he says, “because there’s no big dogs for them to call other than Chappelle, and Chappelle would never cross me. Dun dun dun dun, and then he did!”Williams is referring to Dave Chappelle’s response to the beefs onstage, saying, “Katt is one of the best painters in the game. So why are you drawing ugly pictures of us?”Though the question stung (Williams referred to Chappelle as “the king”), Williams stood by his attack: “If I came to tell you a beautiful story, I would have painted you a beautiful picture. I was trying to paint a story of a group of ugly [expletive] that would do things that would hurt you and uplift them, even though they didn’t need to do that. And then instead of helping you or befriending you, that they would,” he pauses to let out a disbelieving sigh, “go so far as to steal from you if they couldn’t emulate you and then lie about you.”While waiting for the foursome ahead to finish a late-round hole, Williams entertains the question of whether art can be competitive. “History is just a collection of the people that did things the best,” he says between drags of a prerolled joint. Williams brings up Mozart and Chopin, masters who have been studied for centuries.“The benefit of Katt Williams live is that you don’t, in any way, know what he’s going to say,” Williams said.Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York TimesThat’s his aim in comedy, he says. “I will, without question, be one of the greatest comedians that ever lived just because of the body of work.”Williams means for his 12 specials to be assessed as a whole. It’s a yearslong conversation with an audience that began in 2006’s “Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1,” his electric big-league introduction that built to a flaming indictment of a different celebrity, Michael Jackson, two years before the pop star’s death and a decade before the “Leaving Neverland” documentary.His more recent specials have skewed toward topics that tend to send people down conspiracy rabbit holes. On a 2023 Marc Maron podcast episode, Williams said he swapped out about half of the material in his 2022 “World War III” special after touring and receiving notes from Netflix about the show’s darkness, which he said was “turned up viciously high” around race and religion. The set still hit one of its funniest peaks in a riff on how the Nazis became such a fearsome military — by producing and consuming methamphetamine. He told Maron he’d be happy if listeners Googled whether that was true.The night after his round of golf, Williams’s sold-out audience at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville looks perfect for national election polling. There are women in extended-size bodycon dresses, men in Tommy Bahama-esque shirts and couples in matching satin short sets, carrying yard dogs filled with frozen rum runners to their seats.Williams works through a brisk set, zipping darts at Diddy and Ron DeSantis, with a knockdown bit about white slavery. When it’s done, lounging in a locker room where Chet Baker’s version of “My Funny Valentine” rings out against the tiles, Williams suggests that the live Netflix show might delve into touchier topics, if they exist. “I can’t discuss, maybe, Israel and Palestine and Iran until live?”The key to skirting flammable topics and still landing a laugh, he says, is “no matter what joke I’m telling or who the focus of that joke is, the thing that you’re supposed to get from it is that my heart is in the right place. But I see what I see.” More

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    One Year After Scandoval, What’s Next for ‘Vanderpump Rules’?

    The biggest reality television story of 2023 launched spinoffs, a Broadway run and side projects that may cause a halt in production.A little more than a year since TMZ reported that the “Vanderpump Rules” stars Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval had broken up because he had been having an affair with another co-star, Rachel Leviss, it remains the defining story in the greater world of reality TV.The short version of the story goes: Sandoval was performing a show with his band, he lost his phone, and someone handed it to Madix for safekeeping. She went through the phone and found a screen recording of a FaceTime between Sandoval and Leviss that confirmed the affair. The long version … well, let’s reflect on the state of the Scandoval, one year later, with the help of a “Vanderpump” executive producer, Alex Baskin.A Uniquely Disastrous AffairSince the beginning of the show, cheating has been part of the landscape — arguably, a vital part of the drama. But none of the indiscretions between other castmates made it to the headlines of CNN, The New York Times and Time magazine or got a dedicated name and hashtag like #Scandoval.So what made this affair different?Baskin sees the scandal as a few different factors “swirled together to make it something that had a far greater impact than the numerous cheating scandals that had come before it on the show.”First, it was a long-term affair, meaning that Sandoval had been living a bit of a double life. That’s somewhat more intriguing for viewers and more devastating for real-life participants than a one-off kiss or one-night stand.The magnitude of the scandal also set it apart, since producers resumed shooting, despite Season 10 filming having wrapped.“It felt like this had a significance such that we should cover it in real time if we could,” Baskin said. So they borrowed the camera teams from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and got back to filming.“It’s really chilling to watch because you were seeing in the moment the group come to terms with what had just happened,” Baskin noted.Additionally, Baskin noted that Season 10 was still airing when the news broke, so “it became then a series of Easter eggs that the audience was spotting in the show itself.”Of course, the scene of Ken Todd, Lisa Vanderpump’s husband, staggering into the kitchen to say, “I can’t believe Tom had Raquel over while Ariana is away, in the Jacuzzi as well, and she stayed all night,” immediately comes to mind.(And just in case you were wondering, Ken was confused but not that confused: Raquel and Rachel are the same person — on the show, she went by Raquel but has since switched back to her given name, Rachel).The Fallout: Leviss left the show after the end of Season 10 shooting, and in February she filed a revenge-porn lawsuit against Madix and Sandoval, in relation to the distribution of the FaceTime footage that revealed the affair. Lawyers for Madix and Sandoval have asked a court to toss the claim. Season 11 kicked off in January with the most-watched season premiere in Bravo’s history.‘A Point of Demarcation’Though production of Season 11 resumed as usual, the show exists in a time period of its own making, B.S. or A.S. — before or after Scandoval.As the season opened, Madix refused to speak to Sandoval at all, though they were still sharing their Valley Village home. With each episode we have seen Madix and Sandoval tolerating each other more and more socially.Of late, “Vanderpump Rules” has returned to some of its normal, ensemble-oriented shenanigans that made the show so beloved in the first place. There was Lala Kent’s sperm donor party, James Kennedy’s weeping breakdown over his dog Hippie (formally known as Graham), whom he considers a fur baby, and of course the race between the exes Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney to date a 25-year-old singer.“It still was important for us to serve all the other story elsewhere because we wanted everyone else to still be alive and as important to show as they were before,” Baskin said. “Also, tonally, I think that watching a series of episodes of Scandoval would grow really wearing to the audience.”It’s Not About the Pasta: There is still a Scandoval-related conversation in almost every scene.“Vanderpump Rules,” “The Valley,” “Vanderpump Villa” — oh my!To no one’s surprise, the increased publicity has led to a significant expansion of the Vanderpump universe.Bravo is currently airing the first season of “The Valley” which stars the former “Vanderpump” cast members Jax Taylor, Brittany Cartwright and Kristen Doute as they try to “adult.”Then there is “Vanderpump Villa,” airing on Hulu, which follows the staff of Vanderpump’s French chateau.More Pumptinis, please: Lisa Vanderpump is nowhere close to slowing down her restaurant empire — “Vanderpump à Paris” in Vegas is still up and running, and she and her husband, Ken, just opened “Wolf by Vanderpump” in Lake Tahoe.So what’s next?One of the biggest and most obvious results from Scandoval has been Madix’s success outside of the show. She made it to 3rd place with her partner Pasha Pashkov on the latest season of “Dancing with the Stars” and recently finished up her run as Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway.Will the show veer away from Los Angeles and follow Madix on the road?“I think that the show has always grown and expanded, according to whatever is really happening with the group, so I do anticipate that we would cover all of that, but still the central focus is the core friendships within the group,” Baskin said.A Scheana Shay-less Summer: “Vanderpump” would take a break from filming this summer, TMZ reported, though the show usually films through June and July. Madix is the one cast member who is booked and busy during that time, with a new hosting gig on “Love Island U.S.A.” More

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    Seth Meyers Mocks Donald Trump for Falling Asleep in Court Again

    “Does he even wear suits to court or just footie pajamas and a nightcap?” Meyers joked on Wednesday.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. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Power Naps?Former President Donald Trump appeared to fall asleep in court again during his criminal trial this week.“If your main criticism of your opponent is that he’s sleepy, so much so that you call him ‘Sleepy Joe,’ then I would say that your one job as a candidate is to not fall asleep in public,” Seth Meyers said on Wednesday.“All right, what is going on with him? Hibernating bears don’t sleep this much. I’m starting to think when they say he slept with a porn star, they meant literally.” — SETH MEYERS“If you can’t make it through your own trial for defrauding voters during a presidential election without nodding off, how are you going to make it through your daily security briefings as president? Are you going to put a bunk bed in the situation room?” — SETH MEYERS“Oh, so the trial for him covering up having sex with Stormy Daniels is a lot like him having sex with Stormy Daniels — he lasts only a few furious minutes and then nods off.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So far, the only thing that can keep him awake is an iPad playing ‘Bluey.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Does he even wear suits to court or just footie pajamas and a nightcap?” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Vaygan’ Edition)“That’s right, Shana, get ready for him to grab you by the vaygina.” — JIMMY KIMMEL, on Trump’s strange pronunciation of “vegan” as “vaygan” at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday“He’s unfamiliar with any food not offered on a Meal Deal Menu.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“My favorite president was Ronald Vāgan.” — JIMMY FALLON“You know what they say, Viva las Vee-gas.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe rapper and singer Doja Cat performed her track “Acknowledge Me” on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightStevie Wonder will perform on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutMore than 170 rare books have vanished, replaced by very high-quality fakes. This reproduction of a first edition of an 1822 book by Alexander Pushkin was found at the University of Warsaw library in Poland.Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMore than 170 rare books have disappeared and been replaced with high-quality fakes in libraries around Europe. More

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    Schneider Sues ‘Quiet on Set’ Producers for Defamation

    In the suit, lawyers for the former Nickelodeon producer called the documentary a “hit job” that had falsely painted him as a “child sexual abuser.”The television producer Dan Schneider filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against the creators of the documentary series “Quiet on Set,” which aired accounts of sexual abuse and other inappropriate behavior on sets at Nickelodeon, where Schneider was once a star creator of content.The five-episode series, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” included interviews from former employees who denounced Schneider as a boss and objected to sexualized humor in his shows, leading him to release a video in March in which he apologized for some of his behavior on the job, such as soliciting massages on set from staff members.But the show also focused on Nickelodeon employees who had been convicted of child sex crimes — including Brian Peck, a dialogue coach for Nickelodeon, who was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing the “Drake & Josh” star Jared Drake Bell.Schneider’s lawsuit accuses the documentary of improperly conflating him with those who had been convicted of abusing children and took issue with segments of the series that his lawyers said “falsely and repeatedly state or imply that Schneider is a child sexual abuser.”“Schneider will be the first to admit that some of what they said is true,” the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, said of the filmmakers. “At times, he was blind to the pain that some of his behavior caused certain colleagues, subordinates and cast members. He will regret and atone for this behavior the rest of his life. But one thing he is not — and the one thing that will forever mar his reputation and career both past and present — is a child sexual abuser.”Schneider declined to be interviewed for the series, instead issuing a statement that was included in the documentary, in which he denied various accusations leveled against him and said that “everything that happened on the shows I ran was carefully scrutinized by dozens of involved adults.”The listed defendants in the case include Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Max, where the series was streamed; Maxine Productions and Sony Pictures Television, which produced it; and Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, who directed the series. None of the parties immediately responded to a request for comment.Calling the series a “hit job,” the lawsuit said that in several instances viewers were led to inaccurately infer that he was a child sexual abuser, including in the trailer, in which a series of photos and video clips of Schneider are followed by the advertisement of a “true crime event.”“The harm to Schneider’s reputation, career, and business, to say nothing of his own overwhelming emotional distress, cannot be understated,” said the lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified amount of damages.The lawsuit said that Schneider’s legal representatives had sent a letter demanding that the series “not include any statements that allege or imply that Schneider engaged in any criminal or sexual misconduct,” and that the defendants’ lawyer responded that there were no “statements” that defamed him.Starting in the 1990s, Schneider created, scripted and produced a string of hits for Nickelodeon including “All That,” “The Amanda Show,” “Drake & Josh” and “Zoey 101.”But in the spring of 2018, Schneider and Nickelodeon suddenly issued a joint statement announcing their separation. Almost overnight, he largely disappeared from public view.In 2021, The New York Times reported that before that announcement, ViacomCBS, the parent company of Nickelodeon, had investigated Schneider and found that many people he worked with viewed him as verbally abusive. The company’s review found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Schneider.The recent documentary series included information about how Schneider and Nickelodeon parted ways, and reported that the investigation into his conduct “did not find any evidence of inappropriate sexual behavior” or “inappropriate relationships with children.”The series was a ratings hit and stirred up conversations about the appropriateness of some of the material on children’s television. Critics said the shows contained barely veiled sexual innuendo, and Schneider, in his apology video, said he would be willing to cut out parts of the show that were upsetting to people, years after they first aired. At the same time, though, he suggested that the criticism came from adults looking at jokes written for children “through their lens.” More

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    Why Is ‘Baby Reindeer’ Such a Hit? It’s All in the Ending.

    The Netflix stalker series combines the appeal of a twisty thriller with a deep sense of empathy. The conclusion illustrates why it’s become one of the most-discussed shows of the year.This article includes spoilers for all of “Baby Reindeer.”The mini-series “Baby Reindeer” arrived on Netflix on April 11 without much advance hype, but it quickly became one of the most talked-about TV shows of 2024.It’s not hard to understand why. Based on the Scottish comedian Richard Gadd’s award-winning 2019 one-man stage show, “Baby Reindeer” baits its hook in the first episode, which introduces Martha (Jessica Gunning), an emotionally fragile middle-aged woman who appreciates the kindness shown to her by Donny (Gadd), a struggling stand-up comic who offers her a free drink in the pub where he works.By the end of that first episode, Martha’s neediness has begun to shade into creepiness. And by the time Donny discovers that his new friend has a history of stalking, she’s already begun what will eventually become a torrent of abuse, as she floods his email and social media with poorly spelled messages that insult his character and sometimes threaten sexual violence.What makes “Baby Reindeer” so effective is that as Martha pushes further and further into Donny’s personal life — attending his comedy shows, befriending his landlady, calling his parents — the audience shares his mounting feelings of powerlessness and frustration, cut with flashes of pity for the woman who is ruining his life. The show has the “slow-motion train wreck” appeal of a twisty true-crime documentary, but balanced with empathy for two profoundly broken people.A story as dark and uneasy as this one needs a proper ending, though. “Baby Reindeer” has one that is satisfying in its particulars, if haunting in its implications.Gadd (who wrote every episode) plants the seeds for the finale in the penultimate episode, the sixth, which ends with Donny having a career-altering meltdown while competing in a stand-up comedy contest. Donny’s comic style is highly conceptual, involving corny props and awkward jokes, designed to leave his audience wondering whether or not they’re meant to laugh. He’s like a Scottish (and much less effective) version of Steve Martin in his “Wild and Crazy Guy” days. (Or, as Donny puts it: “I’m a comedian when they laugh, a performance artist when they don’t.”)When the crowd can’t get on his wavelength at the competition, Donny ditches his props and just talks, sharing with a stunned audience the story that we have been watching for the previous five episodes. He tells them about how when he was a young and inexperienced comedian, he took an unpaid gig working for Darrien O’Connor (Tom Goodman-Hill), a well-respected TV writer who repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted him. He tells them about his transgender girlfriend, Teri (Nava Mau), whom he’s too embarrassed to kiss in public.And, of course, he tells them about Martha, the angel and the devil on his shoulders: sometimes telling him how sweet, funny and handsome he is, and sometimes calling him a weak-willed, talentless degenerate.Gadd and Jessica Gunning in “Baby Reindeer.” Donny and Martha’s bond is deeper than it initially appears.Ed Miller/NetflixAs the show’s seventh and final episode opens, a video of Donny’s train-wreck performance has landed on YouTube (under the title “Comedian Has Epic Breakdown”), bringing him viral fame and new opportunities. The pressure of that higher profile — coupled with Martha’s ceaseless string of threatening voice mail messages — prompts Donny to confide in his unexpectedly sympathetic parents about being raped. All of these confessions feel liberating.Not too long after, one of Martha’s threats is dire enough to get her arrested — and eventually jailed. Gadd brings the conflict between Donny and Martha to a logical conclusion, with Martha finally acknowledging the harm she’s done by pleading guilty.So Donny lives happily … but not for ever after. More like for a day or two.The unsettling ambiguities of the “Baby Reindeer” epilogue — the real ending, which comes after Martha is safely locked away — are a big part of what has made the show a word-of-mouth hit.First, Donny finds himself going back over Martha’s old messages, and turning every one of their past interactions into pieces of a puzzle that he then pins up on his wall — like a detective trying to crack a complicated case. His inquiry even leads him back to the doorstep of the man who molested him, where Donny falls into an old pattern of deference and eagerness to please.Then, in the series’s knockout closing scene, a bartender gives a teary-eyed Donny a free drink, echoing what Donny once did for Martha. What makes Donny so upset? Take your pick: He’s still processing what Martha and Darrien have done to him. He’s furious with himself for not standing up to his abuser. He attained the fame he always craved and found that it didn’t solve his problems.The final trigger comes when, as he listens to one of Martha’s old messages, he hears her explain that she always calls him “reindeer” because he reminds her of the stuffed toy that comforted her during a rough childhood. For a moment, this former terrifying nuisance goes back to being a person worthy of understanding and even grace. Or maybe, again, it’s actually empathy: Donny ending the story in the same state in which he first encountered Martha makes manifest the bond between them.Part of the global popularity of “Baby Reindeer” is no doubt a result of the web sleuth dimension — the online rush to identify the real figures behind Martha and Darrien. Gadd has discouraged such speculation, and innocent people have been accused.But much of the show’s distinctive appeal comes from how, at a time when trauma narratives almost have become cliché in high-end TV drama, “Baby Reindeer” presents a more nuanced version of one. It authentically depicts trauma and mental illness as confusing, unpredictable and deeply personal, all of which is underscored by the emotional ambivalence of its conclusion.Donny finally achieves success but is ambivalent about it.Ed Miller/Netflix“Baby Reindeer” relies a lot on its subjective point of view. Donny’s voice-over narration dominates every episode, recounting in vivid detail his disgust with himself. The series’s two directors, Weronika Tofilska and Josephine Bornebusch, often keep the camera trained on Donny’s face, capturing his feelings of disorientation as even his best moments are disrupted by Martha’s constant intrusions. Viewers are drawn deep into Donny’s neuroses, which include, he and we begin to understand, an addiction to being the object of one woman’s obsession.But while this show holds close to Donny’s perspective, in a way it also sees the world through Martha’s eyes — or at least to the extent that Donny identifies with her. She’s out of his life by the end of the finale, but he still has to live with that part of himself that feels exactly how she feels.Throughout “Baby Reindeer,” Donny struggles to explain why he’s not more proactive when it comes to Martha. Why doesn’t he warn his friends about her? Why does he take so long to get the police involved? Why doesn’t he freeze her out the first time she turns weird?The answer is that, on some level, he gets it. He too is lost, lonely and awkward much of the time. That’s why there is no real triumph in besting Martha. For Donny, it’s like defeating himself — something he already does nearly every day. More

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    India’s Master of Nostalgia Takes His Sweeping Vision to Netflix

    In the small Bombay theater that showed big films, his father brought him — over and over again — to see the biggest of them all.With every one of his 18 viewings of “Mughal-e-Azam,” a hit 1960 musical about a forbidden romance between a prince and a courtesan, the young boy fell more in love. The rays of light, beamed in black and white, opened to him a world at once majestic and lost. The dialogue, crisp and poetic, lingered in his thoughts. The music swept him to places that only later in life would he fully understand.Bombay would eventually change, to Mumbai. India, cinema and music — they would all change, too. But more than half a century later, Sanjay Leela Bhansali — now 61 and a rare remaining master of the grand old style of Indian filmmaking — has not let go of his seat at that small cinema, Alankar Talkies, on the hem of the city’s red-light district.His mind remains rooted there even as his work moves beyond the theater walls. His latest project, released on Wednesday, is an eight-episode musical drama on Netflix that gives a “Game of Thrones” treatment to an exalted milieu of courtesans in pre-independence India.Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a rare remaining master of the grand old style of Indian filmmaking, directing “Heeramandi” for Netflix.Actors waiting between scenes on the set of the eight-episode musical drama in Mumbai.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    Late Night Weighs In on Donald Trump’s $9,000 Fine

    “I know $9,000 might not seem like a lot to a successful businessman, but what about to Trump?” Colbert said of the court-imposed penalty for violating a gag order.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. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Spare ChangeOn Tuesday, the judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial held the former president in contempt, fining him $9,000 for violating a gag order on nine separate occasions.“I know $9,000 might not seem like a lot to a successful businessman, but what about to Trump?” Stephen Colbert joked.“The judge lamented that that is the most he could legally fine him, warning that if Trump keeps violating the gag order, ‘jail may be a necessary punishment.’ I don’t know if it’s necessary for Trump, but I need it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Even though I’m not on Trump’s side, I don’t think it’s fair. This trial is about the fact that he paid a woman to be quiet. Now if he isn’t quiet, he has to pay them? It makes no sense. They’re using his thing against him. It’s like, like Jesus, a carpenter who they nailed to a cross. I mean, think about it. Read about it in your Trump-brand Bibles, OK?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The judge also told Trump that if he continues to violate the gag order, he might lock him up. Melania was like, ‘Don’t let the judge tell you what to do!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump spends $9,000 at the Wendy’s drive-through.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump was like, ‘But I get the 10th one free, right?’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Trump’s Kids Edition)“I forgot to tell you guys, today was Take Your Kid to Court Day.” — JIMMY FALLON“The good news for Trump is that one of his family members finally showed up at court today. The bad news is it was Eric.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Eric Trump attended his dad’s porn star hush money trial today, which in the Trump family is as close as you get to playing catch in the yard.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Today, the judge ruled that he will cancel court on May 17 so Trump can go to Barron’s high school graduation, which is funny because now Trump has to go to Barron’s high school graduation.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He woke up from a dead sleep in court and yelled, ‘Objection!’” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingHannah Einbinder, the star of “Hacks,” recalled her first time on television in a conversation with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe rapper Doja Cat will appear on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutMaleah Joi Moon in the Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWith 13 nods each, “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Stereophonic” tied for the most nominations at this year’s Tony Awards. More

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    in Theater

    Abe Koogler’s Ominous ‘Staff Meal’ Has Something for Everyone.

    Restaurant patrons and staff members are oblivious to the impending apocalypse in Abe Koogler’s new show at Playwrights Horizons.A woman in the audience started grumbling around 30 minutes into a recent performance of “Staff Meal” at Playwrights Horizons in Manhattan. “What is this play about?” she hissed. A few uncomfortable seconds after she stood up and repeated her gripe for everyone to hear, it was clear that she was part of the show, which opened on Sunday.The disgruntled audience member, played with relatable side-eye by Stephanie Berry, goes on to summarize the setup so far: Two strangers buried behind their laptops, Ben (Greg Keller) and Mina (Susannah Flood), strike up an awkward flirtation at an anodyne cafe. (“Singles in the city? I’ve kinda seen it before,” Berry’s heckler says.) They head to a restaurant where, just outside the kitchen, two veteran servers (Jess Barbagallo and Carmen M. Herlihy) are schooling a new waiter (Hampton Fluker) on his first day. (“Is this a play about restaurants or the people who work there?” the heckler asks.)She goes on to bemoan the frivolity of “emerging writers” who keep “doodling on the walls” as the world burns. “Take a stand! Inspire action!” she pleads. She’s not alone in that sentiment.Embedding self-conscious commentary about the worthiness of a new play, as the writer Abe Koogler does here, is an increasingly common trope. (Alexandra Tatarsky did it with unhinged gusto in “Sad Boys in Harpy Land,” presented at this theater in November.) Blame it on the world being in flames, and the playwrights who can’t help but notice.But preemptively asking what the point is raises the expectation of a satisfactory answer, or at least one that responds to the provocation.There is no one else to object when Berry’s character does what she has just harangued others for doing: relaying a bit of autobiography — she’s a widow and onetime aspiring dancer — that has no obvious plot significance. Back at the restaurant, the chef, Christina (Erin Markey), unveils her own surprising origins: a fantastical tale of class, opportunity and reinvention.Koogler’s previous plays — “Fulfillment Center” premiered Off Broadway in 2017, and “Kill Floor” in 2015 — set up uneasy contrasts between wounded characters and their dystopian workplaces. “Staff Meal” is more loosely constructed and absurdist. Though Ben and Mina eventually forge an incidental unity, and the unnamed restaurant servers bond over industry expertise, the dialogue is less concerned with human connection than with exploring the circumstances that generally necessitate it: proximity in public, collaboration on the job, sitting down in a theater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More