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      ‘Creamerie’ Season 2 Review: Where the Boys Aren’t

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      In a raunchy, rollicking post-pandemic (not that one) comedy from New Zealand, the men are gone but the women are as nasty to one another as ever.Contains many spoilers for Season 1 of “Creamerie.”The New Zealand post-viral-apocalypse comedy “Creamerie” likes to begin an episode right where the previous one left off. So the show’s second season, which premiered Saturday on Hulu, begins mid-cliffhanger: Its three heroines cowering and aghast as they watch their mean-girl nemesis French kiss the traitorous man they thought they loved. (One of them is his sister, another his widow. It’s complicated.) Underscoring the action are the moans of the naked men in the background who are attached, like dairy cattle, to stainless steel tubes that are rhythmically collecting their semen.Oh, did I forget to mention that the viral apocalypse in question only killed humans with Y chromosomes? “Creamerie” is in the science fiction subgenre of world-without-men shows; others include the new Netflix anime “Ooku: The Inner Chambers” and FX on Hulu’s “Y: The Last Man” from 2021. These are actually, almost invariably, world-with-a-handful-of-men shows, since much of their pleasure comes from seeing what happens when the power balance is reversed.“Creamerie” was created by the actresses who play the leads — J.J. Fong, Perlina Lau and Ally Xue — along with the writer and director Roseanne Liang. The four have been collaborators for a decade, making Web series about relatably snarky young women in urban New Zealand. What distinguishes “Creamerie” is how seamlessly it incorporates the raunchy, silly, casually comic vibe of those online shorts (along with their female point of view) into a sci-fi-series framework. It’s a clever but unassuming show, which is why its package of laughs, sentiment, consciousness raising and low-budget Saturday-serial action has considerable appeal.Fong, Lau and Xue play Jamie (determined, sorrowful, sexy), Pip (uptight, repressed, resourceful), and Alex (rebellious, profane, loyal), the proprietors of a dairy farm in rural New Zealand. (That they’re in the milk business is a joke that pays off in full with the reveal of the semen farm at the end of Season 1.) Eight years before, a virus was thought to have killed all men and it continues to kill male embryos; the survival of the remaining half of the human race is presumed to depend on the leftover inventory of sperm banks, which is distributed by lottery to prospective mothers.The fundamental question of these shows is how women would act if they were in charge, and the answer “Creamerie” offers is deflating but comically fertile: They would be really, really mean. The area around the farm is governed by Nordic-featured, yoga-toned, ecru-linen-wearing Amazons, led by Lane (the excellent Tandi Wright), an unholy cross of Gwyneth Paltrow and Martha Stewart who wields “wellness” as a tool of oppression. In the new world ruled by women, if you question authority, you are dispatched for a lobotomy — it’s called being permed — and if you don’t fit the right physical and racial mold, your place in society may be tending cows in the countryside.Of course, Lane and her cohorts are keeping secret the existence of a few surviving men, one of whom, Bobby (Jay Ryan), shows up at the farm. His arrival turns Jamie, Pip and Alex into reluctant insurgents, sending them on an antic, highly messy journey of discovery, liberation and violent payback, one that continues through the second season against ever greater odds.Liang, who has directed all 12 episodes of “Creamerie” and written them with several other writers, primarily Dan Musgrove, is best known for the rousing 2020 action-horror feature “Shadow in the Cloud.” Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, a B-17 bomber and a toothy special-effects gremlin, the film played like an extended, well-choreographed “Twilight Zone” episode. Like “Creamerie,” it wasn’t that deep or self-serious, but the confidence and brio with which it was made gave weight to its mix of feminist and maternal motifs and to its emotional payoffs.Something similar happens in the series: the jokes, the shambolic action and the matter-of-fact satire of gender, race and class alchemize into something funnier and more moving than you might expect. Fong, Lau and Xue aren’t, individually, expert comic performers, but together they have a rapport and timing that expertly serve the material.In Season 2 the scope of the story expands, moving into Auckland, where the national government is led by a gently woke prime minister (Isabella Austin) with pink-and-blue hair and a furry green hipster hat. The heroines continue to find improbable escapes from their increasingly perilous situations, falling out and making up with one another in classic buddy-comedy fashion. And they remain gloriously themselves, no matter how dire things get.Waking up after being tranquilized, not knowing where she is or why, Pip frantically checks her hair, in a joke that reaches back to the characters Lau plays in the collective’s online shorts. Against the notion of a female utopia, “Creamerie” stubbornly insists on the primary value of the individual. More

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      Julie Halston on Playing Bitsy von Muffling in “And Just Like That”

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      Few “And Just Like That” characters have evoked the delightful candor of Samantha Jones the way Bitsy von Muffling, played by Julie Halston, has.Julie Halston knows her socialites. The stage and screen actress ticked off names including Nan Kempner, Judith Peabody, Muffie Potter Aston and Beth Rudin DeWoody while discussing her reprisal of Bitsy von Muffling, a chirpy lady who lunches, in “And Just Like That,” the “Sex and The City” reboot.“Let’s face facts: There will always be the three-name socialite!” Ms. Halston, 68, said on a video call on July 12.Though Bitsy did not appear in “Sex and The City” until the show’s fifth season, she has intermittently been in “And Just Like That” from the very beginning. In the first episode of Season 1, Bitsy runs into Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), and asks them the question on countless minds: “Where’s Samantha?”She was referring, of course, to Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), whose absence has loomed large over the series’ first and second seasons. Last month, Max, the streaming service that airs “And Just Like That,” confirmed Ms. Cattrall will make a brief appearance before Season 2 ends on August 24.Though several new characters have effectively replaced Samantha in “And Just Like That,” few have lately channeled her delightful candor about sex, cosmetic surgery and aging fabulously the way Bitsy has.In Season 2, after running into Carrie at a salon, Bitsy tells her about the healing power a face-lift can offer a widow, explaining that few things felt as good as spending six figures on a procedure after the death of her husband, Bobby Fine (Nathan Lane), a lounge singer widely understood to be gay.Bitsy later tries to impress a potential suitor upon Carrie by sending her a picture of his penis.“When you think about it, yeah, that’s kind of there,” Ms. Halston said of the parallel between Bitsy and Samantha, which also extends to clothes. Like Samantha, Bitsy often appears in bright colors (a hot pink jacket by Thierry Mugler) and bold prints (a kaleidoscopic Pucci top) that add to her effervescence onscreen.In an interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Halston spoke to The New York Times about that picture; her relationship with Michael Patrick King, the showrunner of “And Just Like That” and a “Sex and The City” executive producer; and how the 2018 death of her husband, the radio anchor Ralph Howard, influenced her reprisal of Bitsy.The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed.In Season 2 of “And Just Like That,” Bitsy, right, talks frankly with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) about plastic surgery and sex.MaxHow did the role of Bitsy originate?Michael Patrick King had been a big fan of me and Charles Busch and our company Theatre-in-Limbo for many years. Then in 2001, he saw me in “The Women” on Broadway with Cynthia Nixon. Michael said, “I’m going to write something for you,” and I thought “Yeah, right, OK.” I auditioned for “Sex and The City” a few times and did not get it. One part was a therapist, one was like a Marianne Williamson type — a healer, “A Course in Miracles” kind of thing. Michael kept saying, “One of these days.”A couple years later, Bitsy was born, along with Nathan Lane’s character. People were really excited about this woman who was older, who married a gay man, knowing he was gay. That didn’t matter. He adored her; she adored him. I think that really resonated with a lot of people.Like Bitsy, you lost your husband, so the conversation with Carrie about grief at the salon presumably came from something of a real place.It will be five years this August. Michael knew a lot of what I had gone through, and he’s a smart fellow. He also wanted Bitsy to be a little more than just a funny lady wearing fun clothes, skipping in and out of the girls’ lives. What she said to Carrie — “The hole never fills, but new life will grow around it” — is totally true. It is awful. And you do have to fake it sometimes.Then, a few scenes later, Bitsy sends Carrie the penis picture while Gloria Steinem is speaking. What range!I would totally do that. Bitsy is not trying to be crass and horrible. She has slept with this guy, and now, she’s passing him on to Carrie. She’s doing a mitzvah for her. “Get out in the world. You need to get laid” is what she is saying. That’s very Julie and very Bitsy. Sexual health and sexual satisfaction are what I want more women to be about. I’m telling you, there would be a lot fewer wars in the world if people were more sexually satisfied.Do you also share Bitsy’s appreciation for plastic surgery?I do Botox, which I need right now. Dr. Douglas Steinbrech is how I prep for the role. It’s funny, but it’s the truth!As someone who appeared with the original cast in “Sex and the City,” how do you feel about the news that Samantha will make an appearance in “And Just Like That?”I’m sure there were so many people wanting to know something about her story line. I’m speculating, but maybe the creators thought, “Why don’t we just address this?” I’m not being coy. I honestly know nothing. I know what everyone else knows. Nothing. More

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      In ‘Secret Invasion,’ Ben Mendelsohn Faces a Turning Point

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      In an interview, the Australian actor discusses his character’s big moment in the most recent episode and his role as ally to Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury.This article includes spoilers for the fourth episode of “Secret Invasion.”At one point while on set for the latest Marvel TV show “Secret Invasion,” Ben Mendelsohn and Samuel L. Jackson broke into song.They had both taken a break from filming to listen to some tunes, and when “Poison Ivy” by the Coasters came on they began belting out the lyrics.“I’ll get the occasional word wrong, but Sam’s all over it,” Ben Mendelsohn, 54, said in an interview last week.It’s Mendelsohn’s interactions with Jackson onscreen — their two characters squabble like decades-long lovers as they attempt to stave off World War III — that energize this latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Jackson’s character, the grizzled superspy Nick Fury, has been around since before Tony Stark was Iron Man. In “Secret Invasion,” he’s back to his old pastime of saving planet Earth — this time from an invasion of shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls — but after a hiatus in space, he seems slightly off kilter, slower and less formidable.And so it is Mendelsohn’s character Talos, a Skrull general, who steps in to help — just as he’s been doing for decades, as he reminds Fury: “Your life got a hell of a lot more charmed once I came into it.” It thus feels fitting, though no less upsetting for fans, that Episode 4 ends with Talos sacrificing his life to help Fury complete one more mission.This is Mendelsohn’s third appearance in a Marvel production, after his character’s introduction in “Captain Marvel” and a brief cameo in “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” Now, the Australian actor is relishing the chance to be part of a show full of what he calls “old-fashioned Cold War thriller stuff.”Mendelsohn gained recognition in the United States for his role in the Australian crime drama film “Animal Kingdom,” and he later starred in the Netflix show “Bloodline,” which premiered in 2015. Born in Melbourne, he first got into acting by starring in school plays and memorizing every line from the movie, “Taxi Driver.”“Once I got bitten by that bug, I didn’t look back,” he said.Not long after the premiere of last week’s pivotal episode, Mendelsohn spoke about his role, his character’s relationship with Nick Fury and whether Talos is truly dead. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Mendelsohn’s character, Talos, seemingly sacrificed himself to help Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury complete one more mission.Des Willie/MarvelSo far Marvel’s TV series have taken different forms and explored a variety of issues. What are some of the key themes of this one?I think there is a lot to do with trust and secrecy. I think there’s a certain theme of mutability. You could take that on the obvious level with the whole Skrull-y thing, but I also think it’s about the mutability of where someone is in their life. When I think about the show I think about it through the Nick Fury lens. I’ve always looked at it very much as Sam’s piece. One of the real delights for me is that this relationship morphed between these two characters, which was not there from Day Zero. What I really love is how different Fury is, how different the world is post Infinity Gauntlet and what that does to loyalty. Because loyalty without stress or duress doesn’t mean anything.How has the relationship between Talos and Fury evolved, starting from “Captain Marvel”? At one point, Talos was impersonating Fury, right?Yeah that was such a genius flip from Marvel to have Fury [in “Spider-Man: Far From Home”] be Talos the entire time. Ostensibly the two characters start out as enemies. And what we come to learn is how incredibly loyal Talos is to Fury. What we learn is that Fury owes his entire je ne sais quoi to these creatures. And if you want to think about how deeply Marvel can flip stuff on its head, they’ve taken what were the surf Nazi punks of the Marvel world and turned them into the incredibly effective ally of the humans.Do you think Talos is too optimistic about the humans and the Skrull coexisting?If you keep boiling the argument down, Talos’s argument is really the only one that stands. Because if you take the Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) kind of perspective and you go for domination, there is one thing that Talos correctly surmises: You will not beat them. It’s their spot, and they have already shown that they can be incredibly effective at wiping out enormous numbers of beings. And so while you can look at what G’iah (Emilia Clarke) is going through and understand Gravik’s frustration, it’s similar to the frustrations that we’ve seen play out locally elsewhere. And you might well say, “OK, yeah that’s right. Go for it and go for it now.” But it’s reckless, destructive. And it’s immature both ideologically and in a realpolitik sense. So as idealistic as Talos may appear to be, he is really the only one with the genuine experience and genuine ability to call it. This is not a zero-sum game for humans and Skrull.Given how this episode started, with the big reveal about G’iah’s still being alive, is Talos really dead? Should we expect some kind of regeneration later on?Well to answer that would be to be an enemy of what I do. My greatest loyalty is always to the audience, and I try not to undermine that in any way, shape, or form. But I can definitely tell you Talos’s death is a turning point.Mendelsohn with Emilia Clarke in “Secret Invasion.” “The great strength of the studio is that they play what-if for real,” he said of Marvel.Des Willie/MarvelWhat has it been like to interact with Jackson both on-set and off?The best things that were brought to this relationship onscreen were brought by Sam. Sam’s the reason for the Skrull kiss at the very first time we see them together. It’s Sam who really brings the template in the train scene that allows me to react off and against them. Sam and I have been able to work together because we don’t take it too seriously. But we also try not to half-step. And the reason I look through the lens of Sam a.k.a. Nick Fury is because I come at it as a guy who watched “Jungle Fever” and just went crazy.I think a lot of fans are wondering: What’s the significance of the Skrull in the overarching narrative arc of the MCU?Ever since they’ve been introduced and utilized well, they do present an ever-present threat. Because how do you know? That’s one of the great things about “Secret Invasion.” “Civil War” also has that flavor. It’s just like, Who is who here?The great strength of the studio is that they play what-if for real; they don’t play what-if as an entertaining byline. They play it for real and keep integrating it. Once they have an event for “Secret Invasion,” you can’t un-have it.While I was watching the show there was a point where I wondered if Fury was going to change into a Skrull halfway through?Well, keep watching. Fury is more connected to the Skrull than any other human is. More

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      ‘Justified: City Primeval’ Review: Raylan Is Back

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      Timothy Olyphant returns in a sequel to the Kentucky crime drama “Justified,” and he’s still the coolest lawman in town, even if the town is now Detroit.Eight years after he walked — gingerly, warily, every joint bent at some odd angle — into the sunset on “Justified,” Timothy Olyphant returns on Tuesday in “Justified: City Primeval,” FX’s one-off, eight-episode sequel to its hit hillbilly noir. “Justified” was one of the most entertaining television shows of the last few decades largely because of Olyphant’s cagey, obliquely sexy portrayal of Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a fantasy of a frontier lawman, simmering but sensitive, equally quick with a gun or a pithy comeback.Olyphant does not miss a single syncopated beat in “City Primeval,” which is based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard, who created Givens and traced his career in a handful of books and stories. The character has left the page and become completely Olyphant’s. It’s a wonderfully economic performance, all slouch and sloe eyes, offering a moral thermometer of the fallen world through which Raylan moves via Olyphant’s sly repertoire of expressions: grin, smirk, smile, hard stare, blank bemusement.Onscreen, Raylan has aged more than eight years — he now has a teenage daughter, Willa (played by Olyphant’s daughter Vivian Olyphant), who was a baby when “Justified” ended. Caustic, character-defining references are made to his advanced years: Chasing bad guys at his age means he’s been passed over or he loves it too much; a retired cop tells him, “You remind me of me, man, when I started out. Except you’re old.” These comments create some cognitive dissonance, because Olyphant, despite some gray hair, doesn’t come off as a day older. That could be seen as a lapse in his performance, but come on. We all know what we’re here for.And it’s a good thing original Raylan is still there. Because despite the work of a number of the old “Justified” crew, including the writer-producers Dave Andron and Michael Dinner, and an accomplished new cast, “City Primeval” — though handsomely filmed, well acted and ample in its emotions and its violent action — feels, ultimately, like a simulacrum. The body looks good, but a large part of the soul is missing.In considering why, it’s hard to avoid the fact that Raylan Givens does not appear in the novel on which the mini-series is based — he’s been shoehorned into another cop’s story. (The original protagonist, played by Paul Calderón, gets a short, awkward walk-on.) He’s also been taken out of the Kentucky landscape that was essential to “Justified” and sent on a road trip to Detroit, where he’s now an unwanted outsider rather than a prodigal son.The change of scenery is fine in theory, but it doesn’t produce much. There are artful backdrops of urban decay, congruent with the rural poverty in “Justified,” and the largely Black cast of characters deals with injustices that parallel the hardships of the original show’s poor whites. But those elements feel obligatory — they come to life only here and there, usually in scenes involving Aunjanue Ellis as a lawyer whose life becomes entwined with Raylan’s.And while the plotting of “Justified” was always complicated — a slow build of coincidences, missed connections, bad decisions and murderous eruptions that provided a broad canvas for human weakness and duplicity — in “City Primeval,” the complications feel forced, and there isn’t the same satisfaction when the pieces click into place.Olyphant’s daughter Vivian plays Raylan’s daughter in the new series.Chuck Hodes/FXThe mechanisms by which Raylan and Willa end up in Detroit, and by which Raylan is pulled into the investigation of the killing of a judge, are murky and arbitrary. There’s no good reason for Raylan to be in this story beyond the demand for a sequel, and you can feel the writers straining with the effort of putting him there. Characters drift in and out, or disappear altogether (while still alive). A crew of Albanian gangsters, on hand for local color, conveniently drop out of the action just when you’re thinking, “They could wrap this all up in another 20 minutes.”All along, though, there are reasons to watch. Some simply have to do with the preservation of moods and motifs from the original series, but some are new. One of those is the father-daughter relationship: Willa feels abandoned because of Raylan’s devotion to his job, and the Olyphants nicely render the crossroads of brazen but sorrowful teenage manipulation and agonizing parental guilt. (This section of the story is oddly truncated, though, another instance of haphazard storytelling.)There are also excellent performers everywhere you look: Ellis; Vondie Curtis-Hall as a bar owner who used to be a musician; Norbert Leo Butz, Marin Ireland and Victor Williams as Detroit cops; Adelaide Clemens as the designated seductress. Boyd Holbrook of “Narcos” is smoothly menacing as the big bad: a talkative sociopath in the mold of Boyd Crowder from “Justified,” though you can’t help comparing him unfavorably with Walton Goggins, the man who played Boyd. David Cross turns in an amusing cameo as a wealthy mark. Terry Kinney is likable, as always, but not entirely convincing as an Albanian mob boss.“City Primeval” gets off to an entertaining but confusing start — the first episode is better on a second viewing — and generates enough of the “Justified” brew of eccentricity, off-kilter humor and underplayed suspense to hold interest through a few episodes, before the plot runs out of gas and the malaise sets in. Then a funny thing happens: After the Detroit story is resolved, there’s an epilogue that takes place in a world where we, and presumably the show’s creators, would much rather be. At that point, revealed as the place holder it was all along, “City Primeval” drops right out of your memory. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Below Deck’ and FIFA Women’s World Cup

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      One “Below Deck” spinoff wraps up its season, as another begins on Bravo. And Fox begins coverage of the women’s soccer championship.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, July 17-23. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBELOW DECK DOWN UNDER 8 p.m. on Bravo. The peppy chief stew, Aesha Scott, and Captain Jason Chambers return to sail through Australia on a superyacht for this “Below Deck” spinoff. As anyone who is a loyal watcher of this franchise knows: obnoxious guests, drunken crew hookups and lots of tears are most certainly on the docket for this second season.TuesdayThe sailing yacht from “Below Deck Sailing Yacht.”Fred Jagueneau/BravoBELOW DECK SAILING YACHT REUNION 8 p.m. on Bravo. After multiple engine failures, one exhausting love triangle (or, really, a love pentagon) and some of the rudest guests we’ve seen, there is a lot to debrief at this reunion. Are Daisy and Colin still together? Has Gary gotten his act together? Does Captain Glenn feel bad for how he treated Daisy? Hopefully the reunion host Andy Cohen gets us all the answers we want (and need).LOVE ISLAND 9 p.m. on E! The American version of the original British dating show is back for a fifth season. Sarah Hyland is returning as host, alongside the narrator Iain Stirling, with 10 new contestants. If you are ready to embark in content overload, the show will air seven days straight for the first week. Afterward, there will be new episodes every day except Wednesdays so that viewers can follow along in real time.SOUTHERN STORYTELLERS 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Each episode of this new show uses the story of famous poets, songwriters and writers to illustrate the impact that the South has had on music, movies and literature. The screenwriters Qui Nguyen and Michael Waldron, the actor Billy Bob Thornton and the author Angie Thomas are just a few of the people you will spot on this show.WednesdayCMA FEST 8 p.m. on ABC. The 50th anniversary of the Country Music Association Festival took place in Nashville in June, and now those performances are being broadcast for anyone who missed it — or anyone who wants to relive it. The show, hosted by Dierks Bentley, Elle King and Lainey Wilson, includes performances from Luke Combs, Jason Aldean, Carly Pearce and Darius Rucker — just to name a few.Charlie Day, left, and Glenn Howerton in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”Patrick McElhenney/FXIT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA 10 p.m. on FXX. The 16th season of this sitcom is wrapping up this week, but don’t worry: The show has been renewed through Season 18. (For context, this show premiered in 2005 alongside “Weeds,” “The Office,” and “How I Met Your Mother.”) This season, with only eight episodes, follows the gang getting up to their usual, slightly offensive shenanigans, with Dennis trying (and failing) to have a relaxing day at the beach in the finale.Thursday​​THE PREVIEW MURDER MYSTERY (1936) 8 p.m. on TCM. After a series of menacing notes are received on a movie set, the studio is quarantined, and executives start to suspect a murderer might be lurking. The film stars Reginald Denny, Frances Drake and Gail Patrick, and is directed by Robert Florey.FridayFIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP various times on Fox. The women’s soccer championship is beginning this week, and the United States Women’s National Team are competing for a chance to win their third consecutive title. Because the tournaments are taking place in Australia and New Zealand, the games will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 while quarterfinals, semifinals, third-place match, the Final and recaps will air on Fox.SaturdayHarrison Ford in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”Paramount PicturesINDIANA JONES MARATHON various times on Paramount. To prep for the fifth installment of the franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” now in theaters, watch this marathon of the first three. Catch RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) at 12 p.m., followed by INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) and finally, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989). Harrison Ford stars in all three as the titular character who beats a group of Nazis in finding a religious relic; searches for the sacred stones in India; and sets out to recover the Holy Grail.SundayBELLY OF THE BEAST: FEEDING FRENZY 8 p.m. on Discovery. Few things are certain in this world, but one thing we can always count on? Shark Week. Every July, Discovery showcases all things shark. This year Jason Momoa is acting as host, and each day there will be three to four programs highlighting all aspects of these scary and majestic creatures.MAYBE IT’S YOU (2023) 9 p.m. on E! In this original film, Peter (Brett Dier) and Lexa (Veronica St. Clair) fall into the classic friends-to-lovers trope. As these two best friends find themselves single at the same time, they can’t help but wonder: What if what they’ve been looking for has been right here the whole time? Filmed in Canada, this snowy movie will break you out of the summer heat, at least for a couple of hours. More

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      Tim Baltz on B.J.’s Test in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

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      Sunday’s episode was a test for Baltz’s character, but B.J. seized the moment. Still, his victory came at a price.This interview contains spoilers for Sunday night’s episode of “The Righteous Gemstones.”The first thing to know is that the testicles were fake — in one of the shots, at least. Anyone who has seen Sunday night’s episode of the HBO televangelist family satire, “The Righteous Gemstones,” knows which shot.Near the end of the episode, the sixth of Season 3, Tim Baltz’s character, B.J., gets in a brutal brass-knuckle fight with a naked man that spills onto a suburban front lawn. Just when it seems that B.J. is out cold, his eyes fly open and he reaches, grabs, twists. The neighborhood children watch in horror.In an instant, the typically mild-mannered B.J. has victory well in hand. His nemesis, the philandering Christian rock guitarist Stephen (Stephen Schneider), drops to his knees and pays a brutal price for his affair with B.J’s. wife (Edi Patterson).It was a difficult scene to film, Baltz said last month by video from his home in Los Angeles, and not only because of the endless takes. He also did most of his own stunts — and accidentally got punched in the face several times.“There were a lot of little very quick decisions that either injured us, or barely avoided injury,” Baltz said of shooting the scene, which took all day. He added: “That’s the most intense day of work I’ve ever had.”Baltz grew up in Joliet, Ill., near Chicago, and he has the kind of boyish blond looks, deadpan delivery and cheery Midwestern affect that can make it difficult to tell whether he’s putting you on. (Given the circumstances, I believed him about the shoot.) That affect is one reason he is so convincing as B.J., a sensitive soul who lets his wife dress him in shiny pink rompers and who Rollerblades in full protective gear: It’s hard to believe that anyone could ever really be that earnest; B.J. keeps surprising you because he really is.“Despite being an atheist or a nonbeliever, he’s the most pious and religious character in the show,” Baltz said. “Which is odd,” he added, for a character who married into a family of preachers.Baltz’s character, B.J., has been a pushover for most of the series but Sunday’s brutal battle was a turning point.Jake Giles Netter/HBOB.J. also may be the most meme-worthy character in “Gemstones,” which is saying something in a show created by and starring Danny McBride. Baltz talked about the character, his outfits and the true cost of B.J.’s fight. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.First things first: How did you guys choreograph that, uh, decisive shot?That fight scene took an entire day to film. Once we got outside, we were worried about losing light, and with the camera looking up, the camera moving, I have to grab these fake testicles. I’m looking up at Stephen, who’s barely covering his own junk, and I’m like: “All right man, here we go, and we’ve got to get it right for the camera, too.”There was a stuntman involved for at least some of your parts, right?Yeah. My stunt double for the show has been a guy named T. Ryan Mooney, who looks shockingly like me. Same body type, too. To be honest, I don’t think that I’m like B.J. in real life, but I never feel more like my character than when I watch a guy who looks like me and has my body type do insane stunts, and he does it for a living. It’s kind of emasculating. But aside from B.J. getting thrown through the lattice work or when he gets dragged off the brick steps into the front yard, every shot you see, I did.Stephen seems like a champ for having done his whole part naked. What were your conversations about the scene like?He was really awesome. He was wrestling with whether he should go au naturel or use a prosthetic. It ended up being the last shoot day of the season for both of us, so there was a lot of buildup and anticipation. Stephen would come into town every few months to film stuff, and I would be like, “Let me take you out to dinner, man, because we’re going to have an intense day.” And then halfway through the season, he’s like: “I’m going to do it. I’m going to be naked. I just think there are only so many challenges in life, and I see this as a challenge.”Baltz tried to get to know his co-star Stephen Schneider ahead of time. “By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight,” he said.HBOPresumably he had to get your consent.I mean, the intimacy coordinator definitely called several times to prep me. But for me, it was more like: “All right, this guy’s being really vulnerable with this. So every time he comes into town, we’re going to get to know each other so that we’re buddies going into this.” And honestly, it really worked. By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight.You’ve played around with this image of the wholesome naïf a lot over the years. How much of that feels like you?I grew up playing sports — I was hypercompetitive. I really am not like [B.J.] at all. If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has, and I think a lot of people see that as being a mark in our society.When you book something, you lean into it as hard as you can whether it’s a nice character or someone creepy. But this one in particular you have to understand, Where does the unconditional love come from? And how do I keep in touch with that? This season that really gets tested for the first time, and it gets tested so much that he thinks that he has to change who he is. And the fight scene is the culmination of that.After the fight, B.J. tells Judy, “I hope you like me now.” Does he feel worse about beating up Stephen than he feels about having gotten beat up himself?I think he’s probably more hurt that he betrayed his own values. Danny always said: “When you play B.J., he’s the eyes of the audience within the show. He’s looking at the family the way we all look at the family.” I’ve carried that with me the entire time. So that moment is, “Not only did you cheat on me, but you made me betray myself.”Do you think there’s any part of standing up for himself that he takes in a positive way?I think so. It’s a fascinating evolution of the character. When I first read it, I was excited because I think it puts that card on the table for him. I think parts of our culture see something like that as a rite of passage, or something that you have to rise to the occasion to do. So in that sense, he does do it. But when he comes back, you can also look at that final line as saying, “I’m not the same anymore, so I hope you like what this has changed me into.” You can’t go back after something like that.Baltz said he his not anything like B.J. “If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has,” he said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesIt’s like a more complex George McFly moment.Right. The sliding-door part of that [“Back to the Future”] trilogy is you see what happens if he doesn’t throw the punch, and his life is miserable. And then if he does throw the punch, everything is saved and the family’s OK. With this, I think B.J. probably looks at it and is like, “No, that’s a doorway that I can step back and forth from as I see fit now.” The truth is, his values are, “You shouldn’t do that.” He was forced to do it, and he rose to the occasion. But if given a choice, then he probably wouldn’t.Can we talk about the outfits? There’s a flamboyant dimension to them, and I’ve always wondered what that signifies.There’s a blend of a few things. First, I think he starts as Judy’s kept man; this is her wardrobe for him, and he feels a bit out of place. And then I think he gets more comfortable with it and starts to take bigger swings. Also, if you walk down King Street in Charleston [S.C., where the series is filmed], you will see guys kind of dressed like that. Maybe not as opulent, but the color palettes — there’s a lot of pastels.A lot of salmon.Before I’d really explored Charleston and saw some of these outfits, I thought, “Whoa, this is really out there.” And then in the real world you see it, and these people aren’t making a joke of it. They’re going about their regular lives. I always say that if B.J. was a Christian holiday, he’d be Easter because of the pastels. And it’s incumbent on me to feel comfortable and live in those outfits without making them the point of the joke. More

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      Coping With Crohn’s Disease, With the Help of Rachael Ray

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      The stars of the Food Network help a teenage patient make it through the long days in the hospital with no solid food.When I was 15, I fell in love with the voice of Rachael Ray. That velvety contralto was the soundtrack of my days in the children’s hospital I hated — with its plaid curtains and kind nurses — but called home.For weeks I spent my days hopped up on morphine, in and out of consciousness, nestled in a snake hive of drip tubes and wires. I was intent on fighting off this invader without a name, but even more devoted to the tiny television set that was giving me an education on how to beat a meringue into submission or throw a “simple yet stunning” dinner party (even when one of the guests is a vegetarian).What I remember most was the hunger. I was starving, literally. But I had the Food Network.Under doctors’ orders, I ate hardly anything — not a drop of ginger ale, a bite of a cracker or even an ice chip. This was my first foray into a kind of forced asceticism, something that my body, ravaged by this yet-to-be-diagnosed disease, would frequently require. Ravenousness was embedded in my bones, a constant pang.My gut was too inflamed, spastic and maniacal to handle nutrition by mouth, and the team of doctors proclaimed, with the nonchalance of those who could pop down to the cafeteria for a sandwich, that my digestive tract needed “a break” and should “cool down.” Forgoing food by mouth was the way to get this done.My fate was N.P.O. — nil per os, Latin for “nothing by mouth.” When I had run out of celebrity tabloids to inhale and dutifully completed my homework, I became fluent in medicalese, injecting abbreviations and obscure medical terms into my vocabulary. I learned that this diet — or nondiet, really — was the first step in getting my irate system back to a seemingly elusive homeostasis.I soon received the decidedly unsexy, unglamorous diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. It’s one of those things — chronic, incurable, but can be managed — that can physically and financially debilitate you for long periods of time, in events called flares.Without food, I became half girl, half robot, with angst coursing through me and machines pumping nutrition into my body intravenously in a process called T.P.N., or total parenteral nutrition. T.P.N. is a common treatment for a severe Crohn’s flare. It bypasses the digestive system, giving your colon the ultimate vacation. How luxurious.I lost the contours of a fully sane and satiated human, morphing and flattening into pure desire — skin and bones, ribs visible, thighs that no longer touched — and I became obsessed with the idea of preparing food and thoughts of my favorite meals. Roast beef. Buttery potatoes. Burgers so big and dripping with juices that you’d need six napkins. Most bewildering to those around me, I became obsessed with the Food Network.Instead of food, I devoured clips of Paula Deen inserting pounds of butter into a cake recipe and Sandra Lee concocting something deliciously semi-homemade. Emeril Lagasse’s shrieks of “Bam!” sounded even more authoritative through the fog of opioids. And watching Rachael Ray whip up something “delish” became a lustful experience through those hours of rotting in a hospital bed.I grew accustomed to the emptiness of days unbroken by the familiar markers of mealtimes and instead became dependent on the intervals of carefully dispensed pain medications, always wanting more. I felt swathed and safe in that chemical cocoon and didn’t realize, until years later, that what I had thought was feeling happy really meant being high.All the while I was flipping through channels to see the beloved friends who were always there for me: Rachael, Emeril, Sandra, Paula.The rays of the setting sun would blaze through the hospital windows. Then came the darkness that would allow me to see the TV screen with more clarity as I curled into the warm abyss of a sleeping aid — “the good stuff” that sent me drifting off to a zone of semiconsciousness, free of pain, with dreams of lunches and Coca-Cola and a warm, full belly. The Food Network shows, with their bright colors and erotic displays of shiny spatchcocked chickens, were my proxy for a primal unmet need.I endured the daily drone of doctors and medical residents who poked and prodded, promising “just a few more days of no food.” This went on for weeks, with starts and stops along the way. The few days when I was allowed the most delectable of gastronomic wonders — chicken broth and lemon water ice — were followed by pains so searing and gruesome, and complications so life-threatening, that I would be forced back to square one.I became an animal closing in on its prey, except the prey was a vanilla pudding cup and the messenger was some poor nurse named Liz. If I smelled food, I would devolve into a rageful miscreant, screaming at the visitors who had food with them and ordering them out of my room. I resented those who could tend to their most basic needs with such ease.Psychologists and therapists tried to teach me breathing techniques and other coping mechanisms, which I scoffed at with laughs and eye rolls that only teenage girls know how to give. Even as some of my muscles atrophied, it seemed my middle finger functioned just fine. More than ever, I came to rely on the trusted TV hosts who grilled and baked with such ease. Imagine Ina Garten denying me a meal!I try to think of when Food Became Good Again, when eating became a vehicle of pleasure and not pure pain. There’s no perfect data point. That’s the thing with having an illness that goes on and on: “Before” and “after” are irrelevant. Living in a body on fire requires you to tend to it like a garden — carefully and meticulously and, most importantly, every day.I say I have two jobs, my day job at a newspaper and a second as a secretary of myself and of my body. Skills include a deftness at wading through the health care system, an ability to scream on phones at middle-managing insurance agents and a knack for properly budgeting for “emergencies.” One wrong move could mean a Crohn’s flare or a hefty medical bill.There came a time, after that initial stay in the hospital, when food became not the enemy, but a sort of benign suitor. After months of feeding tubes and stomach pumping, along with one helicopter “life flight” and surgery, I began to get over being sick. The drugs seemed to be working. The doctor’s visits, though tiresome and often marred by procedural nonsense, were helping.I was once again able to eat in a “regular” way — small bites of pizza and greasy chicken tenders, crisp apples cloaked in drippy peanut butter, my favorite. The saccharine taste of Diet Coke and the zing of cheap black coffee are daily pleasures. Rachael, Ina and Emeril are still in the picture, but now when I watch them, at home, I can run to the fridge.Annie Tressler is a corporate communications manager at The New York Times. More

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      Different Sides of Bill Walton and Wilt Chamberlain in New Series

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      New documentaries explore the star-crossed careers and delicate spirits of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Walton, two of basketball’s greatest.Pity the poor 7-footer.That’s the message of two new documentary series about storied basketball players: “The Luckiest Guy in the World,” about Bill Walton (available in the “30 for 30” hub at ESPN Plus), and “Goliath,” about Wilt Chamberlain (premiering Friday at Paramount+ and Sunday on Showtime).Serious and thorough, “Luckiest Guy” and “Goliath” are positioned to draft on the success of an earlier basketball biography, ESPN’s popular Michael Jordan series, “The Last Dance.” But while they are also portraits of men with supreme physical gifts, they are less focused on their subjects’ on-court exploits and more determined to get inside the players’ heads. The sportswriter Jackie MacMullan delivers what could be a thesis statement for both in “Goliath”: “I’ve found that big men are much more sensitive than we realize.”Chamberlain, who died of heart failure in 1999, and Walton both have well-defined personas, which they participated in creating. Each series spends a lot of its time picking apart the received wisdom about its subject while also indulging, for the sake of dramatic impact and storytelling shorthand, the very stereotypes it wants to deconstruct: Chamberlain the unstoppable, insatiable giant; Walton the goofy, fragile flower child.The four-episode “Luckiest Guy” was directed by the accomplished documentarian Steve James, always to be remembered for “Hoop Dreams,” and was made with the full cooperation of Walton, 70, who revisits old haunts and sits down for an entertaining round table with Portland Trail Blazers teammates like Lionel Hollins and Dave Twardzik. It’s engagingly introspective and personal, in part because James pushes back against Walton’s incessant recitation of the title phrase. How can Walton call himself the luckiest guy in the world, James asks from behind the camera, when his career was utterly ravaged by injuries that eventually crippled him and drove him to consider suicide?That, broadly speaking, is the idea that haunts both documentaries. The conundrum of Walton’s and Chamberlain’s careers is that they were marked by success — college and professional championships, statistical domination (in Chamberlain’s case), reputations for unmatched athletic skills — and defined by disappointment. Neither won as often or as easily as he should have, in Walton’s case because of injury and in Chamberlain’s because of the dominance during the 1960s of the rival Boston Celtics and their center, Bill Russell, enshrined in sports mythology as the hard-working Everyman to Chamberlain’s sex-and-statistics-obsessed egotist.“Goliath,” directed by Rob Ford and Christopher Dillon, is a more workmanlike and conventional project than “Luckiest Guy.” But across three episodes it makes a persuasive case for Chamberlain as a generous, sensitive soul who was both blessed and constrained by his stature and his extraordinary all-around athletic ability.It does its sports-documentary duty, laying out Chamberlain’s triumphs and more frequent setbacks on the court. But it is more interested in the trails he blazed as a Black cultural figure and self-determining professional athlete, and it favors writers, pundits and scholars over basketball players in its interviews. (The scarcity of images from Chamberlain’s younger days in the 1940s and ’50s is compensated for with shadow-puppet scenes reminiscent of the work of Kara Walker.)Watching the series side by side, the differences between the two men are less interesting than the sense of commonality that emerges. Both were self-conscious stutterers who learned to endure, and perform under, the most intense scrutiny. Chamberlain may have been more flamboyant, but Walton, in “Luckiest Guy,” is just as conscious of his affect — there’s an ostentatiousness, and no small amount of ego, in the way he performs modesty. (James also challenges Walton’s lifelong, generally debunked claim to be only 6 feet 11 inches tall.)The veteran sports fan might see another commonality: As good as they are, neither “The Luckiest Guy in the World” nor “Goliath” is as exciting to watch as “The Last Dance.” This is a bit of a conundrum, because both Chamberlain and Walton are, quite arguably, more complex, interesting and moving figures than Michael Jordan. But Michael Jordan is a nearly unparalleled winner. And while winning isn’t the only thing, it is, for better or worse, the most compelling thing about the subject of a sports documentary. More