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      ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 7 Recap: The Scorpion and the Scorpion

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      This week, the Roys throw the election eve party they inherited from Logan and as always, they arrive with their own discrete agendas.Season 4, Episode 7: ‘Tailgate Party’This “Succession” season’s premiere episode ended with Tom and Shiv lying together in bed, bitterly angry but still holding hands. In the weeks since, the couple has been flirting more openly (and bizarrely), trying to figure out if perhaps they are each broken in just the right way that their jagged pieces can fit back together.Their weird romantic renaissance peaks with this week’s episode, which sees them sexting each other incessantly — and sees Tom confusingly gifting Shiv with a glass-encased scorpion, in an apparent reference to “the scorpion and the frog” parable. (Tom, sheepishly explaining: “I love you but you kill me and I kill you?”)The couple means to cement their comeback by co-hosting an election eve “tailgate party” in their swanky triplex apartment, with a guest list drawn from a who’s-who of media, political and business bigwigs. They inherited this shindig from Logan, who regularly used it as a way to make nice with his ideological enemies, allowing them all to meet as friends for at least one night and pretend they don’t despise each other. It’s like a cocktail party version of Tom and Shiv’s marriage.As always with “Succession,” the Roys arrive at this party with discrete agendas. Shiv intends to continue in her secret role as the Matsson-whisperer. Unbeknown to Kendall and Roman, their father had already invited Matsson to the party; but the Swede declined, because legacy media backslapping and chest-puffing bores him. It’s only after Shiv warns him that the Roy boys are making moves that Matsson mobilizes. His strutting GoJo band barges into the triplex right when Kendall is leading a moment of silence for Logan.Shiv pretends to be appalled by the rudeness, but after Kendall insists he wants to avoid any direct confrontation with Matsson —“There’s too much peanut butter between us,” he says — she takes the assignment to stay by Matsson’s side, introducing him to the power-brokers while also subtly promoting GoJo’s plans for Waystar and ATN. She makes sure everyone knows she will be involved in whatever comes next — or as she demands of Matsson, have “a very, very, very significant role.”Roman, meanwhile, is still kicking himself after skipping the Living+ presentation that made Kendall the new Waystar star, so he makes his own big move. The polling is showing a tight presidential race, with the Republican candidate Jeryd Mencken falling just short in a few key states. If Roman can talk Connor into dropping out and backing Mencken, that might be enough to make a difference, which would mean that the new president of the United States would owe Roman Roy all the favors.On the whole this is a very heavy episode, but nearly everything to do with Roman wooing Connor is hilarious. After his older brother laughs off the idea that he would concede for “the good of the republic,” Roman becomes the go-between for ambassadorial offers. Somalia? “Little bit car bomb-y.” Work up to a big European post through Slovenia or Slovakia? “It’s a no on the Slos.”Eventually they settle on Oman (“rich man’s Yemen!”), but Willa is concerned when she looks the country up and reads, “The sultan’s word has the force of the law.” She is also not swayed by the prospect of helping Mencken, telling her husband, “All my family and friends hate Mencken.” (Connor just smiles big and says,“Diplomatic plates!”)The subplot takes a sour turn when Willa persuades Connor to reject Oman and stay in the race, which angers Roman so intensely that he refers to Willa as Connor’s “wife” (in quotation marks) and calls his brother “a joke.” This happens immediately after Roman has a crushing encounter with Gerri, who lets him know of her plan to extract “eye-watering sums” from Waystar thanks to his entitled arrogance, sloppiness and sexual harassment.She then adds, as the hardest slap in her former protégé’s face, “I could’ve got you there.” It’s no wonder Roman is fuming when he confronts Connor — though that does not excuse how mean he is.Kendall also makes some missteps while coasting on his Living+ triumph. He invites Shiv’s ex-lover and top Democratic operative Nate Sofrelli (Ashley Zukerman) to the party, to see if the Dems might consider squashing the GoJo deal from a regulatory standpoint. In return, Kendall promises that ATN will give the potential new administration “a better ride on the first 100 days.”All this favor-trading makes Nate uncomfortable, as does Kendall’s insistence that old acquaintances should not have to worry about ethics and legal formalities. (“You’re not Logan,” Nate warns him. “And that’s a good thing.”)Kendall rebounds though when he gets some useful intel about Matsson. GoJo’s long-suffering head of communications, Ebba (Eili Harboe), lets slip that the company’s metrics are erroneously doubling their subscriber numbers in India. (“New money,” Kendall later says to Shiv, shaking his head. “You gotta hold those bills up to the light.”)Kendall comes to Frank and suggests a new tactic: “Reverse Viking.” Acquire GoJo and make Waystar bigger than anything Logan ever achieved. And if Roman and Shiv object? Kendall shrugs. “I love ‘em but not in love with ‘em, y’know” he says. “One head, one crown.”The whole premise of Logan’s tailgate parties are that the attendees are all, to some extent, putting on an act. Loony lefty? Neo-fascist? These are just performative personas. At this party everyone can take off those masks and put on another. But while it’s all well and good — sort of — to play those kinds of games in public, emotionally healthy people do not keep playing them in private. The Roys, damaged by their manipulative and withholding father, repeatedly fail to grasp this. That is how Kendall and Shiv can pretend to have each other’s backs while secretly planning to stab each other.Which brings us back to poor Tom, who realizes as the night rolls on that Shiv will not protect him from the people who want to change ATN. Even while standing right next to Tom, she calls him “Mr. Mild” and “a one-pepper menu item.” While circulating with Matsson, she never balks at any suggestion that her husband has no future with the company. Those rumblings eventually reach Tom, who is already exhausted from being bombarded with questions from the party’s more liberal guests about whether ATN is fostering a climate of political violence.It all ends in tears. In last week’s episode, Shiv and Tom enjoyed a moment of truth-telling they each found refreshing — and even a little kinky. This week though, in a private moment on their balcony, they lob honesty-bombs at each other until they do real damage.In a nightmarish scene, they keep saying the worst things they can imagine about one another. Shiv calls Tom a “hick.” He tells her she is “maybe not a good person to have children.” She blames him for separating her from her father in his final months. He counters, “It’s not my fault that you didn’t get his approval.” The argument is brutal, and may mark a turning point for this show as it pivots toward the finale.Because unlike the tentative togetherness that ended the Season 4 premiere, this episode ends with Tom and Shiv in separate rooms, in deep pain. That’s a strong visual metaphor for where the “Succession” story stands right now. The tailgate party has broken up. Everyone has moved back to their respective sidelines. Welcome to rivalry week.Due diligenceLest you feel too much sympathy for Tom, remember that in this episode he makes goofy faces while Greg is firing dozens of ATN employees simultaneously via a group video call. Later at the party, Greg tries to impress the GoJo crew with his willingness to be heartless. (“You gotta do what you gotta do, right?” he says to Matsson, who replies, “Do you, though?”)Greg is “Team KenRo,” even though Kendall — like Tom — mainly expects him to perform morally objectionable tasks, such as finding some drugs that might make Matsson do something embarrassing. Greg agrees to try his best, despite warning Kendall that Matsson “has expressed a distaste in the past for my particular flavor of me.”The cases of terrible “biodynamic” German wine that Tom was stuck with last season return at the tailgate party, where he tries to fob it off on the guests. (Tom, pressuring Nate into drinking it: “It’s the kind of wine that separates the connoisseurs from the weekend Malbec morons.”)So when will Logan’s funeral be? The series finale, maybe? The past few episodes have been preparing us for a real humdinger of a ceremony, which is currently either going to be Marcia’s “three-day grief-a-thon” or Connor’s “tight 90.” One thing we do know: Roman will be delivering the eulogy, in what could be his last chance to convince the nation’s tastemakers that he is, contrary to his father’s opinion, a serious person.Connor, on spending time with Logan’s corpse: “The weird thing is how much he’s not there. I find that consoling.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Sam Now’ and ‘Jeopardy! Masters’

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      A coming-of-age documentary from PBS follows Sam Harkness and his family over 25 years, and a new iteration of the popular quiz show premieres on ABC.With 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 8-14. Details and times are subject to change.MondayKen Jennings hosting “Jeopardy! Masters.”Christopher Willard/ABCJEOPARDY! MASTERS 8 p.m. on ABC. The “Jeopardy!” champion and co-host Ken Jennings is now the host of the beloved quiz show’s latest iteration. Each episode will feature the current six highest-ranked “Jeopardy!” contestants competing in two games for $500,000 and the Masters champion title. Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach, Andrew He, Sam Buttrey and James Holzhauer appear in the premiere.SAM NOW 10 p.m. on PBS. Shot by Sam Harkness’s half brother, the director Reed Harkness, this documentary follows Sam as he grapples with his mother’s abrupt departure. Through home videos and interviews over 25 years, the film explores concepts of intergenerational trauma, familial relationships and healing as Sam searches for answers and inner peace. Nicolas Rapold’s review for The New York Times called it “a sensitive and surprising“ film “whose emotional reality seems to evolve before your eyes.”TuesdayDANCING QUEENS 9 p.m. on BRAVO. This docu-series follows six amateur dancers as they vie for top spots in the world of Pro-Am ballroom dancing, where professionals are paired with amateur partners for competitions. The six featured women this season range from stay-at-home mothers to businesswomen, all of whom invest their time, money and wits in practice, clothing, makeup, travel and the occasional sabotage in the hope of coming out on top.WednesdayWE NEED TO TALK ABOUT AMERICA 10 p.m. on FUSE. Featuring new and returning first-generation American comedians, this commentary series about the oddities of American pop culture is back for a second season. Gender reveals, eating contests and over the top marriage proposals are among the topics to be dismantled and roasted.THE GAME SHOW SHOW 10 p.m. on ABC. Through interviews with contestants and hosts as well as analyses of the game show genre’s evolution and scandals, this four-part series explores the history and persistence of a variety of American game show formats. The season premiere opens with an examination of the development of the quiz show, and what changes in the audience, contestants and questions asked reveal about American culture. Other episodes explore reality competitions and dating shows.ThursdayFrom left, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan and Tom Hanks in “The Green Mile.”Ralph Nelson/Castle Rock EntertainmentTHE GREEN MILE (1999) 8 p.m. on AMC. Adapted from the book of the same name by Stephen King, this Academy Award nominated film from the director Frank Darabont (‘The Shawshank Redemption’) is a death row drama that focuses on the reminiscences of Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), a retired corrections officer residing in an assisted living facility in 1999. The film follows the story of John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a Black man who has been sentenced to death at “The Green Mile” — the nickname given to Cold Mountain Penitentiary’s death row, where Paul worked in the 1930s — after being convicted of raping and murdering two white girls. As it becomes evident that John is a healer of both humans and animals, and Paul and some of the other officers begin to doubt his guilt. In her review for The Times, Janet Maslin wrote that the film “makes the horrors of the death penalty grotesquely clear,” but that “much of it is very gentle.” She added that the three-hour film’s “unassumingly strong, moving performances and Mr. Darabont’s durable storytelling” make watching it “a trip worth taking.”FridayFrom left, Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron and David Farrar in “Black Narcissus.”Film ForumBLACK NARCISSUS (1947) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. This Golden Globe and Academy Award winning film, adapted from the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden, is a “work of rare pictorial beauty,” according to a review for The Times. It described the movie as “a coldly intellectual morality drama tinged with a cynicism” that hinges on its “provocative contemplation of the age-old conflict between the soul and the flesh.” It follows five nuns attempting to establish a school and hospital in an isolated town in the Himalayas — a mission that goes awry as they each succumb to the pressures of their environment. The film focuses especially on Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), and their responses when their faith and morals are tested. The film was banned for four months in 1947 by the National Legion of Decency, a Catholic group, for its erotic themes. In 2020, the story was remade as an FX mini-series.SaturdaySimu Wu in the documentary “Hidden Letters.”Feng Tiebing/Cargo ReleasingHIDDEN LETTERS 8 p.m. on PBS. For Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, “Independent Lens” presents an exploration of gender relations in modern China through the lens of Nushu, a secret written language developed by women for women centuries ago in southern China. The documentary is structured around the stories of two Nushu practitioners — a divorced museum guide and an engaged musician — and hints at the ways in which the principles of Nushu are still at play today. “‘Hidden Letters’ compels when it dwells in the everyday lives of its two leads, capturing the stray misogyny leveled at them by their partners, fathers, bosses, customers and even strangers,” wrote Devika Girish in her review for The Times. “Like a totem from their ancestors, Nushu evidently helps these women reckon with their own lives and ambitions.”SundayMATCH ME ABROAD 10 p.m. on TLC. This new dating show follows matchmakers based in the Czech Republic, Colombia and Morocco as they work to find connections for seven Americans seeking love overseas. It chronicles the journeys of the singles and their motivations as well as the matchmakers’ perspectives, as they chaperone dates, translate and coach their clients. More

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      ‘The Glory’ Was a Hit. Now Netflix Is Spending More on K-Dramas.

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      As the series, which focuses on bullying and revenge, became the latest global sensation to emerge from South Korea, Netflix announced it would spend $2.5 billion more on Korean content.“Somebody please help me!” Dong-eun, a high school student, screams as a classmate sears a hair curler into her arm while two other tormentors hold her down.The gruesome scene in a school gymnasium is one of the early, pivotal moments of “The Glory,” the 16-episode drama centered on bullying, social status and revenge that has become the latest in a succession of South Korean mega hits for Netflix. Its breakout sensation, “Squid Game,” became the streamer’s most popular series of all time.“The Glory,” which was released in two parts in December and March, is now Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English television offering ever. Executives said they were somewhat surprised to see how well the show did internationally, noting that it reached the top 10 non-English TV list in 91 countries.It was one of the Korean hits, along with “Squid Game” and “Physical: 100,” that Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive of Netflix, cited last month when he met with President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. There he announced a $2.5 billion investment in South Korean content over the next four years and noted that stories created in the country “are now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist.”Don Kang, Netflix’s vice president of content for Korea, said it had been exciting to see the show take off globally. “‘The Glory’ is a great example of a story that resonates authentically with local audiences, but also depicts themes of human psychology and social issues, which audiences everywhere can relate to,” he said in a statement to The New York Times.“The Glory” revolves around Moon Dong-eun, who makes it her life’s mission to seek revenge on the people who bullied her in high school. Her scars serve both as physical reminders of the pain she suffered at the hands of bullies and as the motivation behind her yearslong quest for vengeance. As she ages and develops her complicated payback scheme, she transforms from victim to perpetrator.In braiding together the themes of bullying and revenge — plot devices that have animated dramas for centuries — “The Glory” lured droves of justice-hungry viewers in South Korea and beyond, even without the grand sets and striking visuals that propelled the popularity of “Squid Game.”Netflix officials said they were pleased to discover that a show focused on story line and characters could travel as well as it did. They said they decided early on to release the episodes in two batches in part because of the weightiness of the content.In a country where traditional broadcasters still censor smoking, Netflix is among the platforms that have opened a path for content creators to delve into topics that have long been considered too risqué, said Yu Kon-shik, an adjunct professor of communications at Konkuk University in Seoul and part of the production planning committee at the Korean Broadcasting System.Fans of “The Glory,” some of whom recalled their own experiences with bullying, admitted that they found it gratifying and cathartic to see Dong-eun upend the lives of her enemies, even when she did things they would never consider.“‘The Glory’ is this slow burn of a vengeance,” said Amy Lew, of Temple City, Calif., whose children have been bullied in school. “That’s everyone’s dark side, right? You want to see the underdog win.”“Squid Game” became Netflix’s most popular series of all time.NetflixThere is a reason so many people can relate. Almost one in three students reported being bullied in 2019, according to a UNESCO report, which also found that the prevalence of bullying has increased in almost one in five countries. And although reports of school violence in South Korea are relatively low — about 2 percent of students report being victims, according to its Ministry of Education — the actual figures could be higher because many students are afraid to speak up, said Kim Tae-yeon, a lawyer in Seoul who specializes in the subject.The resonance of “The Glory” and its themes parked the show on Netflix’s Global Top 10 list for non-English television for 13 weeks. (It has spent only three weeks on the list of leading non-English programs in the United States.) It became one of four Korean series among Netflix’s 10 most popular non-English TV offerings of all time, along with “Squid Game,” “All of Us Are Dead” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.”Now the company is hoping to build on those successes by releasing more than 30 Korean series, films and unscripted shows this year alone. At the end of March, just three weeks after the release of the second batch of episodes of “The Glory,” Netflix offered up another new Korean thriller: “Kill Boksoon.”It has spent the past five weeks in Netflix’s top 10 for non-English films.The global success of Korean productions demonstrates the international reach of Netflix — which can subtitle or dub shows in more than 30 languages — but also of the growing power of Seoul as a creative hub, Kang, the Netflix vice president, said.“Korea is a storytelling powerhouse with the ability to showcase uniquely Korean culture and issues,” he said, “while conveying universal emotions that resonate with people around the world.” More

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      Newton N. Minow, F.C.C. Chief Who Deemed TV a ‘Vast Wasteland,’ Dies at 97

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      His stunning declaration caused an instant sensation when he made it in 1961 and ignited a national debate over Americans’ viewing habits.Newton N. Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy’s new F.C.C. chairman in 1961 sent shock waves through an industry and touched a nerve in a nation addicted to banality and mayhem by calling American television “a vast wasteland,” died on Saturday at his home in Chicago . He was 97. His daughter Nell Minow said the cause was a heart attack.On May 9, 1961, almost four months after President Kennedy called upon Americans to renew their commitment to freedom around the globe, Mr. Minow, a bespectacled bureaucrat who had recently been put in charge of the Federal Communications Commission, got up before 2,000 broadcast executives at a luncheon in Washington and invited them to watch television for a day.“Stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you, and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off,” Mr. Minow said. “I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”The audience sat aghast as he went on:“You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.”He added, “If you think I exaggerate, try it.”Mr. Minow spoke at the Gannett Foundation Media Center at the Columbia School of Journalism on May 9, 1991, the 30th anniversary of the speech in which he called television a “vast wasteland.” Susan Ragan/Associated PressTo broadcasters who for years had enjoyed a cozy relationship with the F.C.C., Mr. Minow’s scorching indictment opened a troubling new era of regulatory pressures that for the first time stressed program content and public service. While the F.C.C. had no authority to tell broadcasters what to air, Mr. Minow pointedly reminded them that it did periodically renew station licenses for the use of the public airwaves, and that it had the power to revoke them for irresponsible performance.Mr. Minow’s characterization of TV as “a vast wasteland” — a phrase inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” — was an instant sensation, entering the American lexicon and setting off an avalanche of headlines, editorials, cartoons and letters to the editor, and a national debate over the viewing habits of adults and children.It also transformed Mr. Minow, a 35-year-old Chicago lawyer who had campaigned for Adlai E. Stevenson and President Kennedy, into an overnight celebrity — a household name that a poll of editors by The Associated Press found to be the “top newsmaker” of 1961, ahead of Jack Paar, Gary Cooper and Elizabeth Taylor.Mr. Minow insisted that he had not meant his remarks to the National Association of Broadcasters as a frontal attack. But in the ensuing months, his public hearings and pronouncements kept up the pressure on networks to raise the quality and diversity of programming. And for a time it worked: TV violence appeared to recede, educational offerings for children expanded slightly, the stature of network news was reinforced.But the networks — still reeling from the payola and quiz show scandals of the 1950s — contended that they were only giving the public what it wanted, and an NBC special about Mr. Minow’s hearings appeared to bear them out. The program attracted only a small audience and was swamped by ratings for the western “Maverick” on ABC and the talking-horse sitcom “Mister Ed” on CBS.There was also a certain vengeance — perhaps lost on audiences — when the phrase “vast wasteland” was featured years later as an answer to questions on TV game shows, like “Jeopardy!” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”Communications PioneerMr. Minow served with the F.C.C. for only about two years. And in retrospect, experts say, his most important contributions probably had less to do with his famous speech than with his efforts on behalf of two laws adopted during the Kennedy administration.One required TV sets sold in America to be equipped to receive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) signals as well as the very-high-frequency (VHF) broadcasts that predominated at the time. By the end of the 1960s, most Americans had reception on scores of channels, not just a dozen, with a wide diversity of programming, especially on independent and public stations.Mr. Minow also pushed legislation that opened the era of satellite communications. It fostered the creation, by a consortium of interests, of the Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat), and later the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat), which allowed the United States to dominate satellite communications in the 1960s and ’70s, and it ultimately led to greater program diversity.Mr. Minow, right, in an undated photo with, from left, Frank Stanton, the president of CBS; the program host Arthur Godfrey; and William S. Paley, the network’s chairman.Bettmann, via Getty ImagesIn an interview for this obituary in July 2019, Mr. Minow bemoaned the likelihood that he would be remembered for his assessment of America’s television culture rather than for his efforts on behalf of communications satellites, which he said led to the global information revolution, to digital communications and to the internet.“I went to the White House and told President Kennedy that these communications satellites were more important than sending men into space, because they would send ideas into space and ideas last longer than people,” he said. “I testified 13 times in Congress for the legislation to create the corporations and the funding. I think this is more important than anything else I’ve ever done, for its impact on the future of the world.”The legislation was adopted, and America’s first communications satellite went into orbit in 1962 and was soon used to transmit programs across the world. Mr. Minow’s role was detailed in “Chasing the Moon,” a 2019 book, by Alan Andres and Robert Stone, and a companion PBS-TV series marking the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing in 1969.Mr. Minow resigned from the F.C.C. in 1963 to become an executive with Encyclopaedia Britannica. Two years later he joined a Chicago law firm that merged in 1972 with Sidley Austin, one of the world’s largest practices. Mr. Minow was a partner until 1991 and then became senior counsel. In 1988, he recruited Barack Obama to work as a summer associate at the firm, where Mr. Obama met his future wife, Michelle Robinson.In the decades that followed his F.C.C. tenure, Mr. Minow wrote books and articles, lectured widely and continued to campaign for programming reforms. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting System were founded, educational programming for children and adults was greatly expanded, and network news grew from adolescence to maturity, with a new emphasis on documentaries.Mr. Minow also played important roles in the development of the nation’s televised presidential debates, which began in 1960 with a confrontation between Mr. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. Mr. Minow and Mr. Stevenson, a former Illinois governor and presidential candidate, helped persuade Congress that year to exempt presidential debates from the F.C.C.’s equal-time rule, so that broadcasters could cover them without having to include marginal candidates.Without congressional exemptions, there were no debates in 1964, 1968 and 1972. But the F.C.C. later changed its rules to provide exemptions, and Mr. Minow helped the League of Women Voters revive the debates.He was co-chairman of the 1976 and 1980 debates and later served on the board of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the bipartisan nonprofit group that has organized them since 1988. With Craig L. LaMay, he wrote “Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future” (2008).In the 2020 election campaign, President Donald J. Trump scuttled a second debate with his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden, by abruptly announcing that he would not participate in a virtual face-off ordered by the Commission on Presidential Debates because of concerns over the spreading coronavirus. It was the first time any candidate had pulled out of a scheduled presidential debate.Mr. Minow called Mr. Trump’s withdrawal “a big loss to the democratic process,” adding, “American voters are the losers — deprived of the opportunity to see, hear and evaluate presidential candidates through today’s technology.”Mr. Trump said the debate commission was “trying to protect Biden” and repeatedly sought to undermine its integrity. Without evidence, he accused the scheduled moderator, Steve Scully, of being a “never Trumper” and said the moderator of the first debate, Chris Wallace of Fox News, “was a disaster” who favored Mr. Biden.A Biden spokeswoman said: “Donald Trump doesn’t make the debate schedule. The debate commission does.”In 2016, President Obama awarded Mr. Minow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in a ceremony at the White House.Newton Norman Minow was born in Milwaukee on Jan. 17, 1926, the son of Jay A. Minow, who owned a chain of laundries, and Doris (Stein) Minow. He attended public schools in Milwaukee, enlisted in the Army in World War II and, after earning a certificate in engineering at the University of Michigan as part of an Army training program, helped lay the first telephone line connecting India and China. He mustered out in 1946 as a sergeant.In 1949, he married Josephine Baskin. The couple had three daughters. Besides his daughter Nell, Mr. Minow is survived by his other daughters, Martha and Mary Minow, and three grandchildren. His wife died last year. Mr. Minow graduated from Northwestern University in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in speech and political science, and a year later he received a law degree at Northwestern, where he was editor of the law review and first in his class academically.After a year with a Chicago law firm, he became law clerk to Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson of the United States Supreme Court. He then joined Governor Stevenson as an aide and worked on his unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1952 and 1956 against Dwight D. Eisenhower. He also got to know Robert F. Kennedy, with whom he discussed the effects of television on children.He joined the Kennedy presidential bandwagon early, and after the 1960 election he eagerly sought the $20,500-a-year F.C.C. chairmanship — an appointment some observers considered inappropriate given his limited experience with the media and communications law.Mr. Minow recalled years later that when he told Mr. Stevenson, who had been passed over for secretary of state, that the Kennedy transition team had him in mind for the F.C.C. job the former governor said: “Oh, you must have misunderstood. You’re only 34 years old. They’re not going to ask you to be chairman of the F.C.C.” But they did.A Sitcom’s RebukeWhile his campaign against television violence and mediocrity was widely applauded, it was also criticized by powerful television executives as an unconstitutional government attempt to interfere with private enterprise, and by others as an elitist attack on entertainment enjoyed by millions of viewers. The sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” (1964-67) offered a rebuke of sorts: The boat that sank, leaving its passengers stranded, was named the S.S. Minnow.President Barack Obama awarded Mr. Minow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2016.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMr. Minow’s books on programming, presidential debates and other subjects included “Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television, and the First Amendment,” (1995), written with Mr. LaMay, which urged broadcasters, parents, advertisers and legislators to elevate children’s programming.He was on the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and its predecessor, National Educational Television, from 1973 to 1980, and was chairman from 1978 to 1980. He helped fund the influential PBS series “Sesame Street.”Nearly a half-century after a speech that had become among the most widely quoted of an era, Mr. Minow was still being asked about it, and he still insisted the press had misconstrued his intent.“The reaction was astonishing to me,” he recalled in a 2003 article for the Federal Communications Law Journal. “Particularly astonishing was the importance the press placed upon two words — vast wasteland — which I didn’t think were that important. But somehow that stuck in the public mind. I had two different words in mind: public interest.”In 2011, Mr. Minow wrote an article for The Atlantic, “A Vaster Wasteland,” in which he hailed the “sizzling and explosive advances in technology” that had transformed communications. But he berated television again for failing America’s children and politics, sounding every inch the war horse of old.“For 50 years, we have bombarded our children with commercials disguised as programs and with endless displays of violence and sexual exploitation,” he declared. “We are nearly alone in the democratic world in not providing our candidates with public-service television time. Instead, we make them buy it — and so money consumes and corrupts our political discourse.” More

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      King Charles’s Coronation: A British TV Spectacle for the Digital Age

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      King Charles III’s coronation will be disseminated across numerous platforms to a less sympathetic public than when his mother was crowned in 1953.The mystique around the British royal family — so essential to the nation’s acceptance of its hereditary and privileged first monarchy — has always drawn its power from a blend of secrecy and symbolism that combine in impeccably choreographed spectacle.On Saturday, the regal alchemy will be conjured anew at King Charles III’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in London. The spectacle has been years in the planning, not simply as an event in its own right, but also as a moment in history intimately entwined with its onscreen projection around Britain and across the globe.The coronation will be the first since Charles’s mother, Elizabeth II, who died in September, was crowned in June 1953. Hers was the first coronation to be transmitted live and in full at a time when televisual broadcasting was still a novelty, and it initiated a long era of increasingly close coordination between Buckingham Palace and the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster.Areas for the media to use during Charles’s coronation have been erected in front of Buckingham Palace. The event will be projected around Britain and across the globe.Press Association via AP ImagesAnti-royalists have complained bitterly that, as Graham Smith, the head of a campaigning organization called Republic, said in a recent statement: “The BBC routinely misrepresents the monarchy and public opinion. They suggest the nation is celebrating major events when that simply isn’t the case.”While the BBC rejects these claims of partiality, there is little doubt that as digital technology has advanced over many years, the broadcaster’s royal coverage has become ever more sophisticated and comprehensive. The medium, in other words, has facilitated a kind of blanket coverage of a message that would not have been possible in the 1950s.In 1953, the queen’s coronation unfolded in a nation in thrall to a newfangled miracle called television. British baby boomers, many of them small children at the time, like to recall that television in those days meant a small black-and-white screen in a large wooden cabinet broadcasting a single channel. The British establishment — including its nobles and priests, as well as the BBC — wielded exclusive control of the monochrome footage that would mold a generation’s memory of the event.Makeshift antennae were thrown up on hilltops to link the various parts of the British Isles to the central broadcast unit in London. In the presatellite, predigital era, British Royal Air Force bombers flew raw film of the coronation across the Atlantic for broadcast on American networks.In New York in 1953, crowds gathered around televisions broadcasting the queen’s coronation. British Royal Air Force bombers flew raw film of the event across the Atlantic for American networks.Getty ImagesSome members of the British hierarchy wished to keep cameras out of the inner sanctum of Westminster Abbey, where the queen was crowned. “The world would have been a happier place if television had never been discovered,” the Most Rev. Geoffrey F. Fisher, then the archbishop of Canterbury, who presided over the queen’s coronation, was quoted as saying.Even today, King Charles has resolved to follow his mother’s example by banning cameras from what is considered the most sacred part of the coronation service, in which he is anointed with what is called the oil of chrism.But much else has changed. When Elizabeth was crowned, “Britain was marked by extreme deference,” Vernon Bogdanor, a constitutional expert at King’s College, London, said in a recent interview. “The monarchy was thought to be magical and untouchable.”Since then, the royal House of Windsor has changed radically from “a magical monarchy to a public service monarchy,” Bogdanor said, and “is judged by whether it contributes to society, and if it doesn’t, people won’t have it.” King Charles, he added, seems “well aware of that.”For the king, a helter-skelter technological revolution has transformed every smartphone owner into a pocket cinematographer, hooked to a multiplex world of apps and platforms, uploads and downloads. Where his mother’s crowning bathed the monarchy in uncontested splendor, Charles’s challenge is to focus a much more diffuse spotlight.While Elizabeth’s coronation required only around 20 cameras, Charles’s crowning is set to be broadcast on the BBC’s hi-definition iPlayer streaming service, alongside television coverage. In advance of the coronation, other television offerings — including a soap opera, a sewing program and a show usually devoted to rural life — will be broadcast with coronation-themed episodes “to mark history with an unparalleled breadth of programs,” said Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s chief content officer. Regional affiliates of the BBC, its many radio channels and rival commercial television broadcasters will also have programming on regal matters.With her sparing television addresses and her tight adherence to the royal script, the queen seemed to generally balance the monarchy’s need for visibility with its enduring aversion to scrutiny. But the rest of her family has fared very differently onscreen.“The public eye is grown more unforgiving, its gaze, like its judgments, more relentless,” Catherine Mayer wrote in “Charles: The Heart of a King,” a biography updated last year after its initial publication in 2015. “Even so, if the Windsors wish to see the biggest dangers to the survival of the monarchy, they need only look in the mirror.”From left, Queen Mother Elizabeth, her grandson Prince Charles and his aunt Princess Margaret at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Charles was 4 at the time.Intercontinentale, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince the mid-1990s, when the estranged Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, gave television interviews to seek sympathy for their divergent versions of their marital woes, culminating in divorce in 1996, efforts by members of the royal family to advance their agendas on television have proved ambiguous at best.In 2019, Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth’s second son after Charles, gave a lengthy television interview to try to rebut accusations related to his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The interview set off a public relations disaster, leading to Prince Andrew’s withdrawal from public life.Then, in March 2021, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry appeared in a joint interview with Oprah Winfrey, screened in the United States and then in Britain, after their decision to live in California and step back from their roles as senior royals. The interview touched on a range of topics including mental health issues, intimations of racism in the House of Windsor, and the couple’s sense of dislocation, betrayal and vulnerability.But cumulatively, the airing of grievances, like Prince Andrew’s litany of self-exculpation before it, bolstered the sense of a dysfunctional and anachronistic institution held in place by a fickle mix of public tolerance, inherited privilege and fabled wealth. In the run-up to the coronation, one question eagerly pursued by British newspapers was whether Harry would attend the most important public event in his father’s life on May 6. The answer: he would, but without Meghan and their two children.For Charles, the recent redrawing of the media landscape and the public mood offer perils that were barely dreamed of when his mother was crowned.Charles and his son Prince Harry in 2019. After much speculation in the British press, it was announced that Harry would indeed attend the coronation, but without his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children.Samir Hussein/WireImage, via Getty Images“Because the royals have ended up co-opted into the culture wars,”‌ Mayer, the author, said‌ in an interview, “one word out of place — and, let’s face it, that’s a family that specializes in words out of place ‌ — will have gone round the world and back in a way it never would have before.”‌ More

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      Judith Miller, ‘Antiques Roadshow’ Mainstay, Is Dead at 71

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      Known for her many guidebooks, she helped determine what was trash and what was treasure on the BBC series that inspired the American show.Judith Miller, the author of popular antiques price guides and a member of the team of appraisers who determined what was trash and what was treasure on “Antiques Roadshow,” the beloved long-running BBC program that inspired the American series of the same name, died on April 8 in North London. She was 71.Her husband, John Wainwright, confirmed the death, in a hospital. He did not specify the cause, saying only that she died after a short illness.Ms. Miller, known to the British news media as the queen of collectibles, was often buttonholed on the street by Britons eager to share their back stories of Great-Aunt So-and-So’s bibelots, and at antiques fairs, where many attendees clutched fresh copies of “Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide” or “Miller’s Collectibles Handbook,” the twin bibles of the antiques and collecting world. Once, Mr. Wainwright recalled, at the reception for his mother’s funeral, a woman approached Ms. Miller and pulled a plate out from under her coat, wondering what it might be worth. (He did not know the woman, he hastened to add.)Ms. Miller’s books, updated regularly, are encyclopedic in their range and eclectic in their categories. They describe thousands of objects — the current antiques edition lists more than 8,000 — each illustrated by a sumptuous color photograph. There were the usual suspects, like Royal Doulton Art Deco teacups and saucers, Meissen pottery, Murano glass and pages of Scandinavian ceramics. But Ms. Miller also covered the world of material and popular culture, including a signed photograph of Whoopi Goldberg; a letter from Lyndon B. Johnson on White House stationery; a first edition of William S. Burroughs’s novel “Naked Lunch”; ’60s-era Barbies; and British utility clothing from the ’40s. There was also Inuit art, Swinging Sixties fashion, ’50s-era Ferragamo shoes, James Bond books, baseball cards, soccer jerseys and what was described as the world’s smallest pen, 1.5 inches long, made by Waterman in 1914.Riffling through a Miller’s collectibles guide is delicious social history, an intriguing romp through the decades. A reader could learn, for example, that a plastic box purse from the 1940s in bright, jaunty colors took its shape from the telephone cables that were used because of the shortages of other materials in the years after World War II.Ms. Miller’s books are encyclopedic, describing thousands of objects, each illustrated by a sumptuous color photograph. The current edition of her antiques guide lists more than 8,000.Mitchell BeazleyA mild-mannered woman who spoke with a soft Scottish burr, Ms. Miller was the expert in charge of “miscellaneous and ceramics” on “Antiques Roadshow,” which began in 1979 and she joined in 2007. (The American version first aired in 1997.) One of the treasures she was most proud of identifying was a collection of British Art Deco transport posters by the French artist Jean Dupas, which was brought to the show by a man who had paid 50 pence for them at a yard sale when he was a boy in the 1970s. Ms. Miller estimated their value at more than 30,000 pounds (nearly $40,000).“That was a very well-spent 50 p,” she told the man, who responded with British understatement: “Wow. Gosh.”Her other favorite discoveries, The Guardian reported, included a stash of 2,000 18th-century shoe buckles and a toilet seat used by Winston Churchill.Ms. Miller was a history student at the University of Edinburgh when she began buying cheap antique plates from local junk shops to brighten up the walls of her student digs. Intrigued by their history, she began to research and collect in earnest.With her first husband, Martin Miller, she wrote the first “Miller’s Antiques Price Guide.” Published in 1979, it was an instant success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. After the couple divorced in the early 1990s, Ms. Miller continued to produce books on collectibles and antiques; she had completed more than 100 at her death.Her own collecting ranged from 15th-century porcelain to midcentury modern furniture. She was addicted to auctions, she told The Telegraph: “I get sweaty palms, my heart starts beating faster, and I start glaring at anyone bidding against me.”She loved costume jewelry, as well as pieces by the Danish silversmith Georg Jensen and chairs, which she bought in abundance. She was agnostic with regard to period and preferred buying single chairs to buying sets. Her favorites included an 18th-century ladder-back chair, an Arne Jacobsen piece from 1955 and a Queen Anne chair from 1710. When Ms. Miller set out on an antiques expedition, Mr. Wainwright invariably sent her off with these words:“Repeat after me: We do not need one more single chair.”Judith Henderson Cairns was born on Sept. 16, 1951, in Galashiels, Scotland. Her father, Andrew Cairns, was a wool buyer, and her mother, Bertha (Henderson) Cairns, was a homemaker.Judith grew up in an antiques-free household; she always said that her parents were part of the “Formica generation” and had paid to have their parents’ things carted away after their deaths. She had planned to be a history teacher, but in 1974 she took a job as an editorial assistant at Mr. Miller’s publishing company.After they married in 1978, the Millers embarked on a career of publishing and house flipping; they would move 12 times in 16 years. In 1985 they bought Chilston Park, an enormous estate in Kent, England, with no running water or electricity, where they lived for a time with their two young daughters before turning it into a luxury hotel.In addition to Mr. Wainwright, her partner since the early 1990s, Ms. Miller is survived by her daughters, Cara and Kristy Miller; her son, Tom Wainwright; and four grandchildren.Ms. Miller’s own collection ranged from 15th-century porcelain to midcentury modern furniture. She was addicted to auctions, at which she once said her heart “starts beating faster.”Andrew CrowleyCara Miller has been working on “The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder,” the first in a series of mystery novels to be published next year for which Judith Miller was both consultant and inspiration. At one point Cara asked her mother the crucial question: “What antique would you kill for?” Her answer, as Cara recalled by email, was “Of course for an antique for someone to kill over I suppose it would have to be worth a vast amount — a Ming vase, a Fabergé egg — but that’s not nearly as interesting as what item we love and why we love it. So often the value is in the story behind it and what that story means to us.”In 2020, Ms. Miller told Fiona Bruce, the host of “Antiques Roadshow,” her own story of an object she particularly valued.It was a late-19th-century cranberry glass claret jug. It had belonged, Ms. Miller said, to her great-aunt Lizzie, who had been a downstairs maid at a grand house in Scotland and had married the footman. The jug was a wedding present from the lady of the house. The footman died in the trenches during World War I, and Lizzie never remarried.“To her, this was her most precious object,” Ms. Miller said. “We used to go see her twice a week, and if I was a very, very good girl I was allowed to pick it up.”When Great-Aunt Lizzie died, she left the piece to Ms. Miller.“I think on a good day it’s worth about 40 quid” ($50), she told Ms. Bruce. “But you can’t put a value on the memories.” More

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      ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2, Episode 6 Recap: Little One

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      Teen Shauna goes into labor. Adult Shauna goes into the police interrogation room.Season 2, Episode 6: ‘Qui’“Yellowjackets” often favors the disturbing over the tragic. And for a moment it appears that’s how the long-awaited birth of Teen Shauna’s child is going to go. Shauna wakes up to find that the boy is gone from his crib beside her. She stumbles out of bed, disoriented, and sees her teammates in a huddle, blood dripping from their mouths.“Are they going to eat the baby?” is a question I had heard floated from viewers this season, and it makes sense that that would be the expectation. It’s the most upsetting thing that could possibly happen — or at least it’s what you would think would be the most upsetting thing that could possibly happen. This week’s episode, titled “Qui,” challenges that with a bait-and-switch scenario that swaps out the gruesome for the mournful.It turns out the nightmare of the Yellowjackets feasting on Shauna’s child is just that: A nightmare. When she awakes, her friends are gathered around her. Her baby never made it. “Why can’t you hear him cry?” Shauna weeps, trying to convince the others that her vision was real as they slowly back away.Sophie Nélisse’s sobs burrow under your bones as she cradles the corpse. Because horror has become de rigueur on this series, Nélisse’s portrayal of Shauna’s sorrow hits harder. It was easy to guess that Shauna’s baby wasn’t going to survive. After all, he doesn’t exist in the present timeline, and his chances of surviving the winter wilderness were probably slim. But the revelation that he was stillborn, directed skillfully by the filmmaker Liz Garbus, allows the viewer to experience a raft of emotions that make the final revelation all the more heartbreaking.Immediately, Shauna’s labor is not going smoothly. Misty, still reeling from Crystal’s death, is too panicked to occupy the role she so relishes of the helpful savior. Lottie, meanwhile, is gathering her followers for offerings on an animal skull. The placenta emerges first. The baby is late. As the team chants, ‘We hear the wilderness and it hears us,’ the screen fades to black on Shauna’s anguished face.Then there is a glimmer of hope. Misty places the child in Shauna’s arms as the Elliott Smith song “Pitseleh,” starts to play. It’s a track that takes its name from a Yiddish word for “little one,” but it is also, as is typical for Smith, a sad song about love lost and a relationship that was never meant to be. It sounds like a lullaby, but in context it’s an omen.Shauna’s fantasy of her baby is just realistic enough to fool the audience. Malnourished, she can’t get the boy to latch onto her breast. He cries and cries and is seemingly soothed only when Lottie comes along, offering up her own milk, a detail that begins to indicate that something here is off. When Shauna finally gets her child to breastfeed, there is sweet relief. “It’s you and me kid,” she says. “It’s you and me against the whole world.”But then that maternal happiness is shattered. The tea Natalie has brought her seems to have knocked her out, and she awakens to discover the horrific image of her progeny turned into food. But that’s yet another trick of the mind. The baby never made it.This week’s episode resets the season. The 1990s plotline offers up two events the audience has been anticipating: The birth and the death of Shauna’s child. Now, the remaining three episodes of Season 2 must contend with how Shauna reckons with the loss and how the rest of the Yellowjackets deal with her immeasurable pain. (I’m still not ruling out the possibility that the baby will be eaten. If nothing else, I assume the placenta will provide some nutrients.)In the present day, this installment finally brought the surviving women all back together, each of them making the pilgrimage to Lottie’s community. Given the magnitude of what is happening in the wilderness, the dramas of the 2020s feel like filler to get to the big reunion.Misty arrives at the commune, where she halfheartedly participates in a drum circle. Her initial goal is still to rescue Natalie, but she ends up beckoning more Yellowjackets to this place. This time there are better eats, however. “It’s a bunch of granola losers, but the food is great and the B.O. factor is surprisingly low,” Misty tells Taissa, who decides to meet her. Van drives her, and despite her skepticism and plans to immediately leave, ends up getting out of the car when she sees Lottie.On the journey over, Taissa calls Shauna, who is being interrogated by the cops. Jeff picks up and hears Tai’s pitch on the trip. In the station, Callie thinks she has an angle with Kevyn Tan, telling him that she had sex with Saracusa so any evidence he collects will be inadmissible. But Adult Shauna finds herself in a more vulnerable spot. Saracusa’s line of questioning hits a nerve, and Shauna starts to spill about how she never really wanted to be a mom.The conflicted, occasionally dispassionate way she describes her relationship to motherhood stands in opposition to Teen Shauna’s desperation. Still, her stream of consciousness confession — which seems in Melanie Lynskey’s portrayal at least partially calculated — leads to her admitting that she did have an affair with Adam Martin, which means she’s screwed.When she returns to Jeff and her minivan, he encourages her to go meet up with Tai and Van at Lottie’s.So now they are all back together. Natalie, who has found something resembling real friendship with Lisa; Misty, still scheming; Van, pushing away her problems; Taissa, trying to reckon with her second personality; and Shauna, evading the police. They stand in one line as Lottie, clothed in a blue robe turns to them. In an overhead shot we see that the gulf between Lottie and the other Yellowjackets forms the shape of that pesky symbol from the wilderness. The layout of Lottie’s camp isn’t arbitrary. Instead, it’s beckoning the darkness.During her meeting with her psychiatrist, Lottie explains that she isn’t worried that she is ill, she is worried that she never was ill, that all of the terrors she experienced were very much real and now they are re-emerging. The past has now arrived on her land in the form of these five women. Even if they are seeking peace, it’s hard to imagine that’s what they are bringing with them.More to chew onAnother great Jeff moment: Listening to N.W.A. outside the police station, trying his best to seem tough.The purple fashion options that Lottie’s community provides for newcomers are truly cute. Misty’s coat, for one.I’m still wondering where the Ben flashbacks are going to lead.That said, Ben freaking out over the birth, explaining that he only hit play on a tape during health class is pretty great.Long live the 14th Gilly.I’m rooting for the friendship between Lisa and Natalie — something genuine in this messy world. More

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      ‘Ted Lasso,’ Season 3, Episode 8 Recap: Ends and Beginnings

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      Ted prepares for a new reality, Nate plunges in and Keeley (maybe) steps away.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘We’ll Never Have Paris’This is yet another episode that feels somewhat disjointed, following multiple story lines that don’t overlap much or offer a strong through-line. One could make the case — as I did in the headline — that this is an episode about the ends and beginnings of relationships. But the subplots nonetheless felt more like separate pieces than parts of a whole.Ted and HenryWe open with the news that AFC Richmond has beaten Aston Villa 3-0 for their second decisive victory in a row, an outcome that was easy to anticipate following last episode’s discovery that Total Football with Jamie as facilitator rather than scorer is a winning recipe. (To underline the point we hear the play-by-play of Jamie passing to Dani for a goal.) Moments later, we learn the win streak is up to four.“You have to think,” one of the commentators declares, “that no one is happier than Coach Ted Lasso.”Well, if you did think that, it surely became unthunk as soon as we cut to a close-up of Ted looking not at all happy. He’s in the pub with his ex-wife, Michelle, and her new beau — and their former marriage counselor — Dr. Jacob. “Please, I insist, call me Jake,” he tells Ted, proving that he is just as bad at reading a room as he is at meeting a minimal standard of professional ethics.Michelle and Jake are dropping off Henry with Ted as they take a surprise trip to Paris. (“Jake told me on the plane,” Michelle explains.) Ted may not know much about Europe, but he is confident of this arithmetic: Paris + newish couple = marriage proposal. This assumption is confirmed when, asked where they would propose if they could do so “anywhere in the world,” Trent and Roy in unison cite the City of Lights.This entails a meeting of the Diamond Dogs — plus the rookie member Trent but minus a cranky Roy — though a brief one. Once the others learn that an engagement is merely Ted’s assumption, they agree to follow Higgins’s advice to “find out before you flip out.” It’s OK, though, because this meeting is largely a setup for … But no, that would be getting ahead of ourselves.Ted — again, not happy — decides not to wait for Michelle’s return but instead to ask Rebecca to procure a private investigator to shadow the couple in Paris. Even when he reads to Henry (a children’s book by the Premier League footballer Marcus Rashford), he is consumed: Does “Mommy’s friend” Jake read to Henry? Watch TV with him?Granted the wish to do whatever he wants on a day that Ted and Beard are taking off, Henry opts for a Premier League game and, wouldn’t you know, the only team playing is Rupert and Nate’s West Ham United. So the fellas go to the game, deck out Henry in a West Ham jersey, and shout and wave to get Nate’s attention on the sideline. Again, more on this soon.We next see Ted, Henry and Beard sitting outdoors at the pub as a busker plays “Hey Jude” nearby. My mind immediately went to the song’s Paul-John-Julian back story, which Beard then helpfully unpacked for Henry before advising him, “I know right now it feels like you’re in a sad song. But you, young man, you have the power to take a sad song and make it better.”Ted has by now absented himself to call Rebecca, who had texted to say she had “info.” Its precise nature, however, was apparently revealed to Ted while we were Beatling with Beard and Henry. The most we hear from Rebecca is, “But seriously, who gives a flying [expletive] if Michelle gets engaged,” which is suggestive but not dispositive.Is the omission deliberate and, if so, what is it intended to accomplish? Time will tell. But the tug that Henry exerts on his father’s heart, while scarcely new, is ever more evident — in particular during the goodbyes that close the episode, when Ted can scarcely let go of Henry’s backpack.NateWhen we first run across Nate this episode, he is in bed in the morning. Moreover, he is not alone but with Jade, our favorite hostess at Nate’s favorite Greek restaurant. Upon waking, she quickly determines that, charmingly, Nate had already gotten up, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth and gotten back into bed. Alas, love-struck boy that he is, he quickly falls into the trap of trying to “label” the “relationship” while claiming he’s trying to do no such thing. Slow down, tiger.I confess I feel somewhat disappointed that we went directly from Jade not standing Nate up at dinner to the two comfortably ensconced in bed for what is evidently not the first time. (Indeed, in a later scene, she accedes to the label “boyfriend.”) We have not yet seen a single real conversation between the two, a glimpse of why it is they enjoy each other’s company. We’ve gone straight from romantic tension to romantic fulfillment without witnessing the romantic journey at all, at least so far.Which is perhaps part of the reason Nate’s most moving relationship is still his complicated one with Ted. I noted last episode that even as we watched Good Nate’s re-emergence from Bad Nate, it had been some time since we’d seen him at work at West Ham. Could Good Nate survive in the malignant shadow of Rupert?Smitten, he evidently can, even if only briefly and only with Rupert absent. Nate gathers a couple of subordinates together for a meeting of the “Love Hounds,” a shameless rip-off of …well, I hardly need to tell you. It goes about as well as one might expect, which is to say that the drop-off from the “Diamond Dogs” — I told you we’d get here — is comparable to that between Alvy Singer’s first and second lobster dates in “Annie Hall.” Does the awkward fiasco remind Nate of what made his time at Richmond with Ted special? Oh yes, it most assuredly does.And in case he abruptly forgot, he gets another reminder when Ted, Beard and West-Ham-clothed Henry show up at his match. Visibly stunned at first, he then briefly allows a small smile past his lips.Yet it’s soon clear that Nate still has a way to go. When Rupert later texts him, “Sorry about Ted being there. Won’t happen again,” Nate begins to type, “It’s okay, I thought it was funny.” But even that level of moderate snark seems insufficient. So Nate deletes it in favor of a corporately cold “Good. Thank you.”Still, his ongoing path seems clear. Even in the aforementioned “boyfriend” scene with Jade, what lingers is the smile on his face as he looks at a news photo of Ted, Henry and Beard at the match.Keeley and Jack (and Roy and Jamie)Did I mention the preponderance of red flags in this relationship last week? Why, yes I did. But whether or not the relationship is actually over, as this episode suggests it may be, the developments are connected only peripherally to Jack’s creepily over-the-top love-bombing.Rather, we have what could be called a fairly literal “ghost in the machine”: a selfie sex video Keeley filmed for a past paramour that has made its way onto the internet and, by extension, Keeley’s phone. Keeley is mortified and begs the seemingly omnipotent — read: ultrarich — Jack to fix the situation. “I’m gonna take care of it,” Jack promises.But the photos ripple outward quickly. When Sam tells the rest of the team, Roy leaves the room angrily while Jamie looks worried. Could the latter be wondering what terrifying vengeance the former might be contemplating? Jamie doesn’t know about the rope-dipped-in-red-paint scenario, but he had firsthand experience with the genitalia strings.But no, it’s simpler than that. Jamie is genuinely concerned, as he expresses near the end of the episode — and concerned not only that the video was leaked but that he may have been unintentionally responsible. Keeley had sent it to him, of course, and he confirms that his password is the highly crackable “password,” even if he cunningly disguised it by using two “S”es. For anyone rooting for a Jamie-Keeley reunion, this is a clearly promising scene. For the rest of us …Roy is genuinely angry, and not merely at the leak but at what was leaked. He approaches Keeley and, after saying all the right things, moves on to say precisely the wrong thing: “Who’s it for?” — a question to which he has almost certainly guessed the answer. Keeley promptly exits, and who could blame her?An overdue aside here: What in the world is the show doing with Roy and with Keeley? The original sin was not merely breaking up the two of them, but doing it at the start of this season (and so offhandedly) rather than at the end of last one, when the emotional impact would have been exponentially greater. The show has only compounded that misstep with how it has presented each character since — let me start with Roy and then return to Keeley at the end of the section.I made the case last season that Roy had become the star of the show, and it wasn’t a hard case to make. But this season? His screen time is a fraction of what it was, and his charming, obscenity-laden crankiness has devolved into outright sadism. (See, again, the paint-rope and penis-strings.) And now this scene with Keeley?Was Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy, too busy with “Shrinking” — he is one of the creators of the show, which is quite good — to occupy as central a role as he did last season? Were the other writers punishing him for his televisual two-timing? Whatever the explanation, “Ted Lasso” is killing one of the best things it had going. No matter what the intended narrative payoff, happy or sad, it’s hard to envision it making up for the way Roy’s been portrayed for two-thirds of the season and counting.Sorry not sorry: Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+But back to Keeley and Jack. It turns out that the latter’s “taking care of it” is not quite as envisioned, when Keeley receives the abjectly apologetic note that she is expected to post to social media. Confronted about the statement, Jack demurs that her dad’s lawyers drafted it. But her solution to the dilemma is simply another, different apology note for Keeley to put her name to.Keeley refuses. And after showing her hand probably more than she intended — “the person I’m seeing, the person whose company I’m funding” — Jack shows herself the door with no promise she will return.I confess that this scene didn’t really work for me in any direction: On the one hand, Jack seemed far too quick to make such an existential issue of the dispute, even for someone clearly accustomed to getting her way; on the other, Keeley seemed implausibly surprised that a lover or a boss — let alone someone who is both — would be unhappy about the public exposure of her partner/employee’s sex tape.But this relationship has always seemed a bit forced, a way to give Keeley’s P.R. firm story line the semblance of a plot without actually spending any time on her job itself. Keeley has been largely broken off from the story of Ted and the team with the premise of embarking on her own career. Yet instead of giving us any meaningful sense of that career, her season has consisted almost exclusively of Shandy drama followed by Jack drama, with regular scenes to discuss each with Rebecca.Indeed, there are times it’s hard to believe — between traveling to Amsterdam with Rebecca, Aurora Borealising in Norway with Jack, and then taking the day off for mini-golf — that Keeley has a job at all. Likewise with Jack, who was initially introduced as something of a business titan but who seems more and more to be the daughter of a billionaire who dabbles in investing while reserving most of her energy for amusing herself.While I’m on the subject: It’s wonderful that “Ted Lasso” has made such a clear effort to have substantive female characters in a show about a men’s sports team. But it would be awfully nice if one of its two female multimillionaires had achieved her fortune through skill or perseverance rather than marrying or inheriting it from a man. (How much time, for that matter, has the show devoted to Rebecca’s job? Awfully little since Season 1, when her “job” was principally undermining Ted.)Last season, Keeley and Roy were the delightful hub around which much of “Ted Lasso” revolved. This season, they’ve both spiraled out into disappointing spots on the periphery of the show.ColinKeeley’s relationship with Jack is not the only potential casualty of the leaked sex videos, which Colin initially laughs off with a self-protective “I guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.” But after Isaac commands the team to empty their cellphones of any signs of past sexual encounters, he sees Colin lagging behind and snatches his device. We don’t see what Isaac sees, and obviously we don’t have to. If we didn’t know it already, Colin’s crestfallen face speaks as loudly as any dialogue.What will Isaac do? I have no more idea than any of you. I expect there will be considerably more to say about this next week.Odds and endsThere was no mention of Rebecca’s charming Dutchman from Episode 6. Does this mean he really was just a one-night love affair to remind Rebecca she still had the ability to fall so happily? Or is he being held in reserve for a late-season surprise? Obviously, I’d prefer (and honestly, anticipate) the latter. But I’d ideally like it sooner than later, by which I mean immediately.So, Keeley sent a topless photo to one of her teachers when she was 15? Are we supposed to find that amusing?On a lighter note, here’s to Jamie’s extensive inventory of deodorant sprays.As with the Episode 5 locker-room banter regarding “She’s All That,” “My Fair Lady” and “Pygmalion,” I thoroughly enjoyed Dani’s reference to “Les Misérables,” followed by another player (left back Jeff Goodman?) concurring, “[Expletive] yeah, 24601!”Likewise, Rebecca’s description, however unfounded, of the Eiffel Tower as a “lamppost with a publicist.”I’m not entirely sure what to make of Alyssa, Jack’s college friend whom she and Keeley meet at mini-golf. Perhaps an ex? More