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      ‘Insecure’ Recap, Season 5, Episode 7: Questions, Questions

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      For Issa and the girls, a day of relaxation turns into a night of introspection.Season 5, Episode 7, ‘Chillin’, Okay?!’There is something about spending an entire day with your girls, in the house. Things come out, love is passed around, laughter is shared and there is a warmth that comes from all of that friction.“Chillin’, Okay?!” starts at Issa’s apartment, where Molly, Kelli and Tiffany have met up to start a day of relaxation for Molly, who has been stressed because of her mother’s health crisis. They had planned to meet at the house and then head to a spa, but when a pipe bursts at the spa, they are forced to stay home until dinner.Disappointed, the girls start drinking and forget about the spa. Tiffany starts to play “Last Night,” by Diddy and Keyshia Cole, Molly starts to dance and pretends her wine bottle is a microphone. Issa suggests they play Questions in a Hat, where anonymous questions are thrown in a hat and randomly selected by players, but Kelli is skeptical. “You know the power it has,” she says sinisterly.Questions in a Hat is less a game than an icebreaker exercise, designed to make the mind feel comfortable while exposing vulnerabilities. Even though the girls are friends and have become closer throughout“Insecure,” there are still things that need to be tugged out of them, like when Molly admits to having never seen “Love Jones” (guilty!) even though she bonded with Issa over the movie. Or when Tiffany admits to thinking about her husband when she masturbates.When deeper questions start to come up, Issa explains that she and Nathan are not in a good place. The girls listen and check Issa. That is what sisterhood is for: To let you know that yes, maybe you are inconsistent and maybe your boo is not wrong. The ladies are perfect at it — funny, calm and just harsh enough.Issa says she is willing to start over, to let go of what she has with Nathan, but no one believes her — not her girls and not the viewers. She also admits to feeling bad because Nathan has not returned her “I love you.”Molly then draws the “If you could have one do-over, what would it be?” question.Issa has been thinking about her own do-over since she noticed that Lawrence moved back to Los Angeles. She has been considering reaching out to him for closure, she says, which she hadn’t shared with her friends.“I just wish I figured out what I wanted to do sooner,” she responds to Molly’s question.Later on, while Issa’s friends are ranking her lovers — Daniel for the win — she tells the girls that she saw Lawrence, Condola and Elijah at the hospital. Condola and Lawrence seemed like they were doing well, so Issa assumed they had rekindled their affair. But Kelli lets her know that things were not great with them at Tiffany’s child’s birthday party.“Really?” Issa responds, as if she were trapped in a hot car and a window had just magically opened. She tries to make the case for how she feels to her friends.“You made the smart choice,” Molly reassures her.“Sometimes it’s not about making the smart choice — it just has to make sense to you,” Tiffany says.Issa’s eyes light up. Tiffany’s comment validates her feelings — she’s looking for any reason to run back to who she knows and what feels safe. Things are shaky with Nathan and that instability can be exhausting. Sometimes you just need to be loved and supported.After the girls decide to stay in for the night, they cute up the balcony with rugs and throws and pass libations around. When Dro, the messiest of all “Insecure” men, calls Molly, Issa sees it as an excuse to call Lawrence, though she has no plan for what to say. Molly snatches her phone and hangs up.“Girl, you know I love you right?” she asks, and then reminds Issa about the earlier discussion of her inconsistency. “You’re doing it — like how is this going to help?”While Issa was thinking about backsliding toward Lawrence, the man himself was trying to repair his relationship with Condola. Issa has not realized — or is choosing not to consider — that Lawrence has a world of his own to take care of right now. A baby doesn’t care about Issa’s need for closure or even what Lawrence wants at all. It isn’t like before; starting over for Issa now means leaving safety totems like Lawrence behind.The next morning, Nathan calls and tells her that he loves her and that he knows he can be avoidant and childish. (I cannot confirm that calls like this happen in real life.) He promises to do better and she hangs up with a smile on her face. Then Lawrence returns her call from the night before. She does not pick up because she does not need a security blanket anymore.While there’s still part of me that secretly would like to see Issa and Lawrence end up together in the series finale, what I really want is for Issa to choose herself and the things she wants out of love, not desperation. I want her to chill, OK? More

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      ‘Succession’ Season 3, Episode 8: Italian Ice

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      Kendall didn’t come out of the last family wedding so well. His mother’s Tuscan nuptials don’t look any more promising.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘Chiantishire’At the end of this week’s episode of “Succession,” Kendall Roy is floating on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, face down and clearly intoxicated. From underwater, in a shot aimed toward the pool’s surface, we see Kendall drop his bottle of beer into the water. From the camera’s perspective, it appears his face is also submerged. He looks … dead?Whether this is a literal or figurative death remains unresolved when the closing credits roll. (Surely the show wouldn’t kill off a major character in such an ambiguous way?) We do know, though, who is responsible — in a roundabout way — for putting Kendall into that pool. It’s the same people who brought him into this world: his mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), and his father, Logan.This week, Kendall joined his family in scenic Italy for the wedding of Caroline and her old flame Peter Munion (Pip Torrens). He appears to be on a mission to straighten out his life after last week’s calamitous birthday party. His hair is buzzed down to stubble — “stripping down,” he says — and he seems determined to make peace with his siblings and to settle his Waystar business.But as soon as Kendall arrives, his mother pulls him aside and tells him about Peter’s awful “itinerary of events,” asking if her son can help divvy them up in such a way that he won’t be in the same space as Logan — per Logan’s request. That is the first blow to Kendall’s confidence.The second comes when Kendall is talking with Comfry about some last-ditch opportunities to keep his crusade against corporate malfeasance alive in the media. A popular podcast is investigating “the Curse of the Roys” and would love to have him participate. The problem? The hosts are going to dig deep into all the family scandals … including the death of the cater-waiter whom the media thinks Logan bullied to death but whom Kendall actually drove into a lake at Shiv’s wedding.The third strike to Kendall’s psyche — the finisher — comes when he has dinner with Logan. Kendall has given this meeting a lot of thought. He consulted with Logan’s doctor to make sure the menu fit with his dad’s restricted diet. (“Afraid I’m going to Jim Jones you with an olive?” Kendall jokes.) And he prepared a reasonable proposal. He will cash out of Waystar for two billion dollars while keeping one of the company’s media assets for himself. He also promises to stay out of Logan’s life forever. “I won’t even speak at your memorial,” he says.But Logan won’t play along. He calls in Kendall’s autistic son, Iverson, to taste his food, to make sure it isn’t poisoned. This is icy not only because it demonstrates a lack of trust but also because Logan seems blithely willing to sacrifice his grandson. (In a further dig, he then asks Kendall of Iverson, “Is he getting better?”) And although he seemed willing to buy his son out before, he hesitates now that he has a counteroffer in hand.This whole scene — intense and emotional — neatly encapsulates the whole Logan Roy mentality. He wants his family and his employees at his beck-and-call, but he doesn’t want to grant them any real boon. Whenever someone he is negotiating with seems satisfied, Logan gets restless.Like nearly every other one of his corrosive personality traits, this combination of greed, envy and paranoia has been passed on to his children — and to Shiv, in particular. While Logan is having a miserable dinner with Kendall, Shiv is stuck at a “girls night” with Caroline and some of her future in-laws. The conversation she has with her mother is just as revealing about “the Curse of the Roys.”Shiv has long kept Caroline on the list of childhood disappointments she had to overcome. But Caroline won’t let her get away with this revisionist history. In Shiv’s memory, her mother took a payout from Logan and then pushed her and her brothers to go live with their dad when she was 10 years old, all because Caroline didn’t want to play mommy any more. The real story? Shiv was 13; and she made an active decision to move in with Logan. (“I’ll have the carbonara and daddy,” is how her mother describes her daughter’s casual cruelty.)This revelation fires up Shiv, who heads back to her room and tells Tom that she is ready to fight for the top Waystar job — and to have a baby with him. But their night of passion goes poorly, as she slips into a curious bit of dominatrix-style role play, which sees her seducing Tom while purring, “You’re not good enough for me,” and, “I don’t love you.”The next day he wants to discuss this, wondering, “Should I maybe listen to things you say directly in my face when we’re at our most intimate?” But Shiv insists none of it should be taken seriously. (“What happens in Sex Vegas …?,” she offers weakly.) She also modifies their pregnancy plan, offering to freeze their embryos instead, and then wraps up the conversation with, “I may not love you, but I do love you.” Such is the way a Roy expresses affection.This deep fickleness is evident also in the way Logan handles the continuing negotiations with Lukas Mattson and GoJo. At the start of this episode Logan brings Stewy and Sandi into the office to inform them about the acquisition, pretending it’s a courtesy but really wanting to rub it in their faces a little. But he also insists that he will kill the deal if they don’t like it; and truth be told, he is a little nervous about the way Mattson seems to be driving up his share price with reckless, emoji-filled tweets. (“I’m not used to negotiating via eggplant,” Logan sighs.)So Roman is dispatched to the Mattson compound to find out whether the GoJo boss is mentally unstable or just making “a move.” The two men have an unsettling discussion about the thrill of failure; and Roman may have come away from this meeting with the impression that Mattson is a flake. But he hedges his bets with Logan regardless, telling his dad that their potential business partner really wants “a merger of equals” — something he figures will torpedo the deal.Instead, surprisingly, Logan is open to the idea of letting GoJo be the acquirer while Waystar runs the business — so long as he knows that Mattson is “a serious person” and not “a Twitter panty flasher.” (“I can win any bout with a boxer,” Logan says. “But I don’t know how to knock out a clown.”)What does give the old man pause, though, is that while Roman is celebrating what he thinks is another big win for himself, he accidentally texts a picture of his penis to his father, thinking that he is harassing Gerri. Now Logan has reason to question Roman, Gerri … really his whole command structure.Amusingly, when Roman tries to explain the whole concept of sending photographs of genitalia, Logan reassures him that he is aware of this phenomenon, saying, “We do publish a number of popular newspapers.” This echoes something he says to Kendall as they wrap up their bitter meal together with nothing settled. Kendall tries to deliver a closing statement on his time at Waystar, telling his dad, “You won because you’re corrupt and so is the world,” and, “You’ve turned black bile into silver dollars.” Logan smirks and says, “Just noticed, did you?”Logan counters Kendall’s self-righteousness first by standing up for his revolutionary vision for the news: “A bit of spice, a bit of fun, a bit of truth.” Then he stabs his son through the heart, referencing the dead waiter again by asking, “How long was that kid alive before he started sucking water?”And so, as day follows night, Kendall ends up sucking water himself, mired in self-loathing in a Tuscan paradise. Dead or not, at this moment, he certainly isn’t alive.Due DiligenceGreg’s budding romance with Comfry seems to be stalling as he watches her getting constantly distracted by “phone stuff.” He says to Tom and Shiv, “I do wonder, is there depth there?” Following their suggestion, he decides to use his time with Comfry as a “date ladder” to something better and flirting with an honest-to-goodness European countess who is also the online brand ambassador for a fermented yogurt drink. But he gets flustered while talking to her, and the best he can think to say is that her beverage of choice is “a gut-cleansing treat.”Everyone is very worried about the true intentions of Caroline’s beau, Peter — even the bride-to-be herself, who admits, “He is awful, I can obviously see that.” (Roman, pretending to be indignant: “That’s my stepfather you’re talking about.”)In the past, through Kendall’s many coups and calamities, Roman and Shiv have maintained a special bond, connected by their shared relief that they are not their brother. That rapport now seems to be in jeopardy, thanks to Roman’s open glee at Shiv’s exile from the inner circle. He tries this week to win her back by recruiting her to help him take down Peter, but instead she asks — sincerely and bitterly — what is wrong with Roman. He mutters: “We’re working on it. An ongoing process.”Leave it to Connor to ignore one of the cardinal rules of social etiquette as he drops to a knee in front of Willa: Never propose at a wedding. More

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      Eddie Mekka, a Star of ‘Laverne & Shirley,’ Is Dead at 69

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      As Carmine Ragusa on the hit sitcom, he got to show off his singing, tap-dancing and gymnastic skills — and to croon “Rags to Riches” many times.Eddie Mekka, the actor best known for his role as the aspiring entertainer Carmine Ragusa on the hit television series “Laverne & Shirley,” died on Nov. 27 at his home in the Newhall area of Santa Clarita, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles. He was 69.His death was announced on Mr. Mekka’s Facebook page. No cause was given.Mr. Mekka was a regular cast member on “Laverne & Shirley” (1976-83), a sitcom about two young single women working at a Milwaukee brewery in the 1950s. His character, known as the Big Ragoo, was the high school sweetheart and on-again, off-again boyfriend of Shirley (Cindy Williams).If anyone was upset with Carmine, all he had to do was sing the words “You know I’d go from rags to riches” — in Tony Bennett style — and all was forgiven. Mr. Mekka got to show off his singing, tap-dancing and gymnastic skills in talent-show and other episodes. In the final episode of the series, Carmine found success: He went to New York, auditioned for the Broadway musical “Hair,” and got the job.Mr. Mekka was the second veteran of the “Laverne & Shirley” cast to die in less than a year. David L. Lander, who played Squiggy, died in December 2020.Mr. Mekka began and ended his real-life career on the stage, even earning a Tony Award nomination. He was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance as Lt. William L. Calley Jr., who perpetrated the My Lai massacre of civilians during the Vietnam War, in “The Lieutenant” (1975). Mr. Mekka at the 2006 TV Land Awards. In his later years, he appeared in regional theater, playing the part of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Harold Hill in “The Music Man.”Paul Mounce/Corbis, via Getty ImagesClive Barnes, reviewing the show for The New York Times, said Mr. Mekka displayed “an honesty and openness that proves very attractive” in his portrayal of “a puzzled kid with a gun who has been told to kill.” The musical, with its difficult subject matter, closed after nine performances but received four Tony nominations.He also appeared in more than 50 film and television roles, including small parts in “A League of Their Own” (he jitterbugged with Madonna at a bar) and “Dreamgirls” (as a nightclub manager). His last screen appearance was in the 2018 film “Hail Mary!” (originally titled “Sushi Tushi”), a comedy about a football team that recruits sumo wrestlers.Edward Rudolph Mekjian was born on June 14, 1952, in Worcester, Mass., to Vahe Vaughn Mekjian, an Armenian-born factory worker who served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and Mariam (Apkarian) Mekjian, a dry-cleaning presser.He performed with the Worcester County Light Opera and attended the Boston Conservatory for a year before dropping out to take a job with a regular weekly paycheck in dinner theater.He married the actress DeLee Lively in 1983; they divorced in 1992, and he married Yvonne Marie Grace two years later. His survivors include a daughter, Mia Mekjian, and a brother, Warren Mekjian; complete information on survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Mekka returned to the New York stage in 2008, starring in the one-man Off Broadway comedy “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish and I’m in Therapy.” He also continued to appear in regional theater. He was Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” Pseudolos in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” Seymour in “Little Shop of Horrors” and Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” his favorite role, which he said in 2003 he had already played more than 20 times.He had a unique take on the character, as he told The Boston Globe in 2014: “I play him like an older, grumpier and slower Jackie Mason.” More

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      Netflix Holiday Movies Ranked, From Tree Toppers to Lumps of Coal

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      Is the streaming service delivering goodies in its holiday stockings? We make an assessment.We are back for our third annual ranking of the new original Netflix Christmas films, and the news is good: After last season’s dull vintage, Netflix has gotten back on track and improved its batting average. Still, it’s worth noting that while the top movies are much better than their equivalents from last year, the bottom entries are much, much worse. (Note that more originals are slated to debut after our deadline, but the biggest presents have already come down the chimney). Light spoilers ahead.1. ‘Single All the Way’Hulu scored with the lesbian romantic comedy “Happiest Season” last year, and now Netflix is striking back with a male version. This time, the lead does not shun the right love interest (Team Riley forever!).Michael Urie stars as the serially single Peter, who has dragged his roommate and best friend, Nick (Philemon Chambers), home for the holidays. Once settled in cozy New Hampshire, famine turns to feast as Peter is torn between two lovely suitors — there are no baddies in this movie. One is his mother’s trainer, James (the Hallmark Channel hottie Luke Macfarlane), and the other is the friend-zoned Nick, who had been hiding his true feelings.Directed by Michael Mayer, “Single All the Way” is fast-paced, funny and sweet without being cloying (the HGTV joke is gold). Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge, as Peter’s mother and aunt, deliver particularly delicious turns — the rehearsal scenes for Coolidge’s Christmas pageant alone could have landed this movie in the No. 1 spot.2. ‘A Boy Called Christmas’Like “Klaus” (No. 2 on our 2019 ranking), this film is a Santa origin story, albeit a live-action one as opposed to animated. A poor Finnish boy, Nikolas (Henry Lawfull), sets off to find his father (Michiel Huisman), who has left him behind to find the village where elves live. Of course that place could merely be the stuff of legends, but since Nikolas has a talking pet mouse (voiced by Stephen Merchant), we know early on that anything is possible.Based on a book by Matt Haig, “A Boy Called Christmas” knows that the best fairy tales have dark undertones, and it drops satisfyingly ominous touches: Dad is far from perfect; the wicked children-hating Aunt Carlotta (Kristen Wiig, in too short a role) does something unspeakable to Nikolas’s beloved turnip doll.Regrettably, the film never goes full Roald Dahl on us — if only Tim Burton had directed it. But kids should enjoy the story while their parents will eat up the sneakier jokes and fully appreciate Sally Hawkins’s stunning performance as the elf leader Mother Vodol.3. ‘Love Hard’This rom-com has such a sketchy premise that its spectacular recovery should count as an Olympics-worthy gymnastics feat.The biggest test is that viewers are asked to not hate Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) after he catfishes Natalie (Nina Dobrev) by using a photo of his hunky friend Tag (Darren Barnet) on a dating app. Not only does Natalie quickly get over the switcheroo, she then agrees to pretend to be Josh’s girlfriend. The film’s main asset is Yang (Jian Yang on “Silicon Valley”), whose Josh miraculously comes across as sweet rather than creepy. Once that battle is won, “Love Hard” — which is funnier than most rom-coms and fully embraces a farcical goofiness — can convincingly sell its central relationship. By the time Natalie and Josh duet on a memorably revised version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” we are firmly rooting for them.Bonus (likely involuntary) Netflix callbacks: Natalie is said to be a Los Angeles 6 and a Lake Placid 10; in “Single All the Way,” Nick is described as a 10 and Peter is a 10 in New Hampshire.4. ‘A Castle for Christmas’Sophie (Brooke Shields) is a best-selling American romance novelist who travels to Scotland to reconnect with her roots and impulsively decides to buy a scenic castle from its bristly cash-strapped owner, Duke Myles (Cary Elwes). Since a white-knuckle suspense this is not, they fall in love and all ends well.The film supplies the usual rom-com accouterments, in this case an adorable knitting circle that warmly welcomes Sophie, but it really hangs on the chemistry between Shields and Elwes. Fortunately, these two have a comfortable, playful rapport that makes their preposterous circumstances almost feel natural. Sealing the deal for Myles is his dog, Hamish, played by Barley, a natural who is more than ready to lead a spinoff movie. Barley is a 10 anywhere.5. ‘The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star’Netflix’s holiday all-star Vanessa Hudgens is back for the third installment of her trademark franchise, and this time everybody seems to have an eye on the clock, waiting for the ordeal to end.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘And Just Like That’: The Shoe Must Go On

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      In the ’90s, “Sex and the City” celebrated single women. Can a new, more nuanced version make a comedy of middle-aged ones?When we last left the ladies of “Sex and the City,” the pathbreaking, cupcake-inspiring HBO series and film franchise, Miranda had joined a new law firm, Samantha had achieved orgasm atop a Mercedes G-Class SUV, Charlotte was hosting a child’s birthday party, and Carrie and Big were snuggling on the sofa as a black-and-white movie played, a happily ever after for everyone.This was the peaceable close of “Sex and the City 2,” the strained 2010 movie that sent its characters into the Middle East and critics into ecstasies of disdain. (Here is A.O. Scott’s comparatively mild pan in The Times: “Your watch will tell you that a shade less than two and a half hours have elapsed, but you may be shocked at just how much older you feel when the whole thing is over.”) Still, another movie was planned, only to fall apart, largely on Twitter, in 2017. Like a Fendi baguette, the series seemed to have gone out of style.But the ’90s are extremely on trend right now, and the women of “Sex and the City” (well, most of them) have returned for another strut down the premium cable runway. “And Just Like That,” a 10-episode limited series, premieres on HBO Max on Dec. 9. Don’t call it a reboot! The characters so rarely wore boots!Like the original, this new version follows the author Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), the lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and the former gallerista and current homemaker Charlotte (Kristin Davis). But in the place of Kim Cattrall’s libertine Samantha are four new actors: Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, Karen Pittman and Sara Ramírez. Their presence remedies the original’s blinding whiteness, though if the promotional materials are any indication, not its appetitive glamour and unacknowledged privilege.So here’s a question for Carrie: Can a show adapt to changed characters and changing times while still supplying what fans loved about the original?On break from a shoot at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios, Michael Patrick King, a “Sex and the City” executive producer and the showrunner of “And Just Like That,” had an enthusiastic answer. “It’s dangerous. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge,” he said, bent forward on the sofa in his office. “It’s not a cash cow. It’s not a cash in.” Besides how else could he get a show about middle-aged women greenlighted?“I don’t think that anybody would take on new women characters at 55 without proof that people will watch,” he said. Which means that ladies might have some new paths to break, if they can walk them in heels.The original “Sex and the City” was always two shows. One was a fidgety, philosophical comedy about single, successful women who didn’t need a man to complete them. Or maybe they did? And really, what is completion anyway? The other was the show as fans received it — and the show that it arguably became — a high-gloss romantic comedy and a fashion romp. What, you think it was the existential crises that motivated the bus tours?New stars like Nicole Ari Parker (center, with Davis and Pat Bowie) keep “And Just Like That” from being as overwhelmingly white as the original.Craig Blankenhorn/HBOThat latter show had long ago reached its conclusion. Because in a romantic comedy, once the girl gets the guy — or as in Samantha’s case, the many guys — where can the story really go? This structural roadblock explains why the second movie spun its wheels. (Those wheels were camels, which King now somewhat regrets.) So it seemed destined to live on only in reruns, rewatches and Instagram accounts devoted to its outfits.But early into New York City’s pandemic lockdown, King and Parker began to chat about making a behind-the-scenes podcast. At some point, those chats turned more imaginative, speculating about what the lives of the characters might look like now. As Parker, speaking by telephone from the set of another sequel, “Hocus Pocus 2,” put it, they began to ask themselves, “Why are we not thinking about the thing that we’ve touched on many times, which is, are there more stories to tell?”Having already resolved the characters’ questions about marriage, partnership and children during the original series — King maintains these weren’t the relevant questions, but few plot lines centered on anything else — the new show claims to look elsewhere and largely inward, just as the first series did in its early seasons. Parker ran down a few of the current interrogations: “Who am I? What will change do to me? Can I change? How do I react to big change?”The show has undergone changes big and small — some thematic, some aesthetic, many structural. King recalled that during the first series, he felt as though he had to tie up each episode with a little bow, a concession to an audience that might not view them sequentially.“Streaming is like, untie the bow,” he said. “Untie it.”That doesn’t mean that “And Just Like That” encompasses much mess. During my visit to Steiner Studios, where I felt extremely underdressed, King took me around the various sets, each immaculate. Miranda’s Brooklyn brownstone and Charlotte’s Park Avenue palace have each received glow-ups. Carrie’s old apartment has lilac paint and statement wallpaper now. Her closet? Sublime.So Carrie still has two apartments, but “And Just Like That”no longer centers her experience. The show has mostly done away with her voice-over, making way for dialogue for its four new main characters: Choudhury’s high-end real estate agent, Parker’s documentarian, Pittman’s professor and Ramirez’s podcast host.Why didn’t the show have more characters of color before? “It was a show that was based on material that was very much of its time,” Sarah Jessica Parker said diplomatically, referring to Candace Bushnell’s New York Observer columns.Though Nixon has stuck with the franchise, she said she had been “horrified” by the lack of racial diversity during the show’s original run. Like Parker and Davis, she said that she insisted that the characters in this new version couldn’t function as trendy accessories for the original cast.“In order to get great actors to do these parts, they would have to be not supporting us,” Nixon said. That meant also insuring that the writers’ room was staffed with several women of color and that their story lines followed these new characters even when Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte headed offscreen.“Each of the episodes, at this point, they’re all around 43 minutes,” King said. “Because there’s seven fully realized people in it.”The new series doesn’t try to reform the characters, Parker said: “We don’t try to make a point of, ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter.’”Craig Blankenhorn/HBOOn the day I visited the set, I watched one of Nicole Ari Parker’s scenes. Dressed to the nines or maybe the tens, she performed a marital spat with her series husband, played by Christopher Jackson. A few days later on the phone, I asked her if she had seen the original series — she had — and if its overwhelming whiteness had bothered her.“A little bit,” she said. “But I wasn’t expecting ‘Sex and the City’ to be realistic.” She was talking to me while she shopped for shoes at Nordstrom, which seemed nicely on brand.“I mean, every now and then I felt sorry for them,” she said. “Like, if they had a Black girlfriend, they wouldn’t be having these problems.” But she appreciated how complex a character the show had created for her and that she wasn’t the only character of color.“They understand that one Black friend is not going to cut it,” she said.Still, this new series shouldn’t be seen as a repudiation of the old one or even as a corrective to its oversights — well, some its oversights. Sarah Jessica Parker knows that not everyone liked the original characters, Carrie in particular. This new show doesn’t aim to fix them.“We don’t try to make a point of: ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter. See, they’re sorry for the things you didn’t like,’” she said. “I don’t think that’s our best approach.”The occasional tutu aside, “And Just Like That” isn’t intended as fan service either. The series doesn’t pretend that the women haven’t moved on with their lives in the intervening years; it doesn’t deny that they have aged. When some first-look pictures and a teaser trailer emerged, social media briefly blew up with comments about the women’s looks and the cosmetic interventions they had or hadn’t undergone.“And Just Like That” has several scenes that discuss these issues directly. King mimed a bit involving Nixon’s Miranda and her neck. Generally, it aims for stories about women in their 50s as rich and bright and complicated, if not as raunchy, as the ones the original told about women in their 30s. (Same city. Less sex.) Which is to say that it’s trying for just a little more nuance than “The Golden Girls.”“I am a woman in my 50s, so I am well aware that your life does not end whether you find a guy or a girl or not, whether you have kids or not, right?” Davis said. “We can testify to the fact that it’s not over, and it’s not boring. So I was never in doubt that we could tell interesting stories.”What those stories were, no one would spoil. Eager fans have analyzed that 30-second teaser clip with the exegetical rigor typically reserved for ancient hieroglyphs. So here is what I did learn: Big (Chris Noth) is not dead. Samantha is not dead, though Cattrall’s absence means that she doesn’t appear onscreen.“Nobody’s dead,” King said. Nobody? “Nobody.”And yet, Willie Garson, who played Carrie’s gay best friend, Stanford Blatch, died during the filming of “And Just Like That,” a sad reminder of time’s passage and the grief it can bring. His death wasn’t written into the show.“Because it wasn’t charming,” King said. “And I knew that the audience would know.”“And Just Like That” wants to charm. It isn’t the first comedy about middle-aged women. Since “Sex and the City” ended, television has offered “Cougartown,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Younger.” September brought Julie Delpy’s “On the Verge.” But a few statement necklaces aside, none of those shows had quite the glamour of “Sex and the City” and none were quite as revolutionary — in the frankness of the sex talk, in the insistence on female subjectivity, in the championing of single women, even if it did pair just about all of them off.Will “And Just Like That” exert the same cultural, fashion-forward influence, even in a culture obsessed with youth, even in a world glutted with content? King, predictably but not unreasonably, argues that it might.“If it was aspirational — aspirational apartments, aspirational clothing, aspirational people — it’s still aspirational,” he said. More

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      Trevor Noah Says Omicron Might Not Be So Bad

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      Noah said that new strains are like streaming new TV shows: “You gotta stick with it the first couple of weeks and see where it goes.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Next Week on OmicronThe first Covid cases with the new Omicron strain have been reported in the United States.Trevor Noah encouraged viewers not to freak out just yet, saying, “We have no idea if Omicron is actually that bad.”“And what I mean by that is, we don’t know if it might spread more easily or we don’t know if it will be more deadly. It’s just too early to know. And I hate to sound like someone describing every streaming show right now, but you gotta stick with it the first couple of weeks and see where it goes.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yesterday, we learned the first Omicron case on U.S. soil was found in California, which led the state’s secretary of health and human services to claim Californians were proud to have identified the first Omicron case. Good for you, Golden State. You put that kind of positive spin on all your disasters: ‘Greetings from California, home of extra-crispy trees.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Unfortunately, that’s not the only case. Today, a second case of the Omicron variant was identified in Minnesota. But do not panic — it’s just one person in America’s heartland, who recently traveled to New York City. OK, OK fine but maybe he was here on business, spent most of his time alone in his hotel getting takeout and staring pensively out the window at all the people he wasn’t infecting — right after he attended the 2021 anime convention at the Javits Center.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, one of the first U.S. cases of the new Covid variant may be an adult man who attended an anime convention. I mean, which is good. At least we know that it’s not transmitted via eye contact.” — TREVOR NOAH“But people, please remember this, please remember this, we shouldn’t be surprised when we find more and more cases, OK? Because Omicron is like those microscopic bugs that live in your eyelashes: Even if you don’t see them, you know that they’re there. Yeah, laughing at you about all the spiders that crawl into your mouth while you sleep.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Getting Lit Edition)“Well, guys, tonight in Washington, D.C., President Biden attended the 99th annual national Christmas tree lighting. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was like, ‘Uh, yeah, sure, that’s the national Christmas tree.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The event was hosted by LL Cool J. Originally Snoop was supposed to host, but he canceled once he found out it wasn’t the kind of tree lighting he was used to.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And this was special — a real-life Elf on the Shelf made an appearance. Yeah, he got up and said, ‘For the last time, my name is Pete Buttigieg.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Then organizers said, ‘Sorry, here’s the real Elf on the Shelf,’ and then he got up and said, ‘I’m sorry, for the last time, my name is Dr. Fauci.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingTracy Morgan talks about why he’s going back onstage on Thursday’s “Desus & Mero.”Also, Check This OutRebecca ClarkeBette Midler shared her love of classics like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and Charles Dickens, among others, in this week’s By the Book. More

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      Jussie Smollett’s Lawyers Dispute Account That Attack Was Staged

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      Under questioning by Mr. Smollett’s defense team, two brothers who say they participated in a fake attack denied suggestions they had lied to avoid prosecution.Jussie Smollett’s lawyers suggested in court on Thursday that two brothers at the center of the case attacked the actor to scare him into hiring them as his personal security, and later, to avoid prosecution, falsely told the police that Mr. Smollett had planned it all as a hoax.The brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, have each testified that Mr. Smollett gave them detailed instructions on where and how to mildly attack him in January 2019.“You attacked Jussie because you wanted to scare him into hiring you as security,” said a lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Shay Allen, “so you could go back to L.A. and get paid $5,000 a week, didn’t you?”“No, sir,” Abimbola Osundairo replied.During cross-examination, the brothers, both aspiring actors and fitness aficionados, disputed that and other defense contentions about the attack. During more than 11 hours of testimony, which touched on minute details like Mr. Smollett’s grocery list and workout regimen, they told the court that Mr. Smollett instructed them to yell racist and homophobic slurs at him — and say, “This is MAGA country” — during the attack.During one of the brothers’ testimony, the defense asked for a mistrial, suggesting the judge had misspoken during the proceedings and later asked for the judge to acquit Mr. Smollett. But Judge James Linn ruled against Mr. Smollett in both instances.Thursday was a pivotal day in the trial as the prosecution, whose case relies heavily on the brothers’ credibility, rested after each brother told the jury in detail that Mr. Smollett had knowingly made a false police report about the attack.Abimbola Osundairo, 28, testified on Wednesday that Mr. Smollett, who is gay, dreamed up the scheme because he had been disappointed by what he saw as a muted response from the television studio to a death threat he received days earlier.Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo both appear in minor roles in the television show “Empire,” in which Mr. Smollett had starred. Abimbola Osundairo said he had agreed to participate in the hoax because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for securing him a role as a stand-in on the show, while Olabinjo Osundairo said that, as an aspiring actor, he had agreed because he wanted to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.The defense’s efforts to undermine the brothers’ credibility included questions about guns and drugs found in Abimbola Osundairo’s home and accusations that Olabinjo Osundairo had a history of making homophobic comments.Olabinjo Osundairo is not legally allowed to possess a gun because he was convicted of aggravated battery several years ago. But a detective testified earlier in the week that the guns were all Abimbola Osundairo’s and were owned legally and described the amount of cocaine discovered as “very small.”One of Mr. Smollett’s lawyers, Tamara Walker, also cited discrepancies between Olabinjo Osundairo’s testimony and what he had said to the grand jury in the case. He told the grand jury, for example, that he had decided to pour bleach, instead of gasoline, onto Mr. Smollett because he wanted to avoid being seen filling up a gas container on a surveillance camera. In court on Thursday, though, he testified that he had chosen bleach because he thought it would be safer on Mr. Smollett.The brothers remained composed during their sessions on the witness stand even as they were being questioned about several written conversations that Olabinjo Osundairo has had in which he made remarks that the defense cited as homophobic.Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, denied any bias, explained the remarks as mistakes he had made because he was upset and asserted that he had “no hate for anybody.” The prosecution had earlier in the day shown the jury a photo of the brothers at the Chicago Pride Parade in 2015 in which they were dressed as Trojan warriors for a float that centered around the condom brand of the same name.The mistrial request arose from this line of questioning as Judge Linn at one point described Ms. Walker’s questions about Mr. Osundairo’s past comments as “very collateral matters.” She argued, unsuccessfully, that the judge’s remark had discredited a part of the defense argument in front of the jury.A third lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Heather Widell, accused Judge Linn of making “snarling faces” during the defense questioning. The judge objected to Ms. Widell’s characterization and pointed out her own “smiles and frowns.”“There is no mistrial here,” Judge Linn said. “Frankly, I’m stunned you’d consider a mistrial based on that little colloquy.”Jussie Smollett’s trial entered its fourth day as the prosecution wound down its case and the defense challenged the credibility of two brothers who say the attack Mr. Smollett reported was a hoax.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressEarlier in the day, Olabinjo Osundairo testified that during the attack on Jan. 29, 2019, while his brother and Mr. Smollett were on the ground, he put a noose around Mr. Smollett’s face and made sure to pour the bleach on Mr. Smollett’s clothing, not his skin, to avoid severely injuring him.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Ron Cephas Jones Has Something to Prove Again

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      The Emmy-winning “This Is Us” actor received a double-lung transplant after a secret battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Now he’s back onstage in “Clyde’s” on Broadway.In the spring of 2020, a recurring nightmare began tormenting the actor Ron Cephas Jones. A theater veteran known for his work on the NBC drama “This Is Us,” Jones is 64 and wiry, with short waves of black hair and an almond-shaped face. In the dream, he is delivering a monologue onstage — darkened room, white backlights — when he notices something amiss. Everyone in the audience is looking elsewhere, in seemingly every direction but his. Jones waves and shouts, trying to draw the crowd’s attention. But no matter how desperately he screams, no one registers his presence. He is there but not there, a ghost among the living.In the new Broadway play “Clyde’s,” where Jones plays a kind of spiritual leader to a beleaguered crew of recently incarcerated sandwich cooks, he is the show’s transfixing center of gravity — the very opposite of ghostly incorporeality. But when the nightmares began, Jones really was in mortal peril.In May of last year, he received a double-lung transplant after years of suffering in secret from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Jones spent nearly two months at the Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Los Angeles on and off a ventilator, learning to breathe and then eat and then walk again. The hope of one day returning to the theater was the fire that fueled his recovery.Uzo Aduba as Clyde and Jones as Montrellous in Lynn Nottage’s new comedy, “Clyde’s,” in which ex-convicts working at a truck-stop sandwich shop dream of remaking their lives.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“My whole life has been the stage,” Jones said recently, over lunch at a restaurant a few blocks from the theater where “Clyde’s” is running. “The idea of not performing again seemed worse to me than death.”Jones is the kind of actor who works like chipotle mayo — you don’t always think to look for him, but you’re happy when he shows up. About six years ago, after three decades of working on and off Broadway in New York, he began quietly lending credence to a crop of ambitious streaming-era dramas. He added a touch of warmth to Sam Esmail’s “Mr. Robot,” a note of vulnerability to Marvel’s “Luke Cage,” a foreboding undercurrent to Stephen King’s “Lisey’s Story.” But his biggest breakthrough — and two Emmy Awards, for outstanding guest actor — came from the ratings smash “This Is Us,” where Jones has played William, the biological father of Sterling K. Brown’s character, Randall, since 2016.On a series with no shortage of weepy story lines, William is a figure of singular pathos. The character, who is Black, bisexual, a former drug addict, an absentee father and has terminal cancer, would in lesser hands strain the limits of good taste. But Jones’s soulful performance — the weather-beaten brow, the voice like brushed wool — confers a lived-in texture and depth.The same year that Jones was cast as William, he complained to his doctor about difficulty breathing. An X-ray confirmed advanced emphysema, a pulmonary condition in which damage to the lungs deprives the blood of oxygen. Jones, who had been a two-packs-a-day smoker for most of his life, was told the disease was progressive — left untreated, his lungs would grow weaker and eventually collapse. He was advised to consider a transplant. But he shut down the idea after learning the risks involved. Even if his body accepted the new lungs, there was a 31 percent chance he would be permanently bound to an oxygen tank.From left, Jones, Bob Dishy, Tonya Pinkins and Zach Grenier in “Storefront Church,” about Bronx residents whose lives become tangled in unexpected ways, at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2012.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I was in total denial,” Jones said. “I told myself that it would pass, or that I was just getting older. I was afraid and didn’t want to change what I wasn’t ready to change.”For a year after his diagnosis, Jones continued smoking up to 12 cigarettes a day. He finally changed course in 2017, after an incident on the set of “This Is Us.” While filming a long outdoor scene with Susan Kelechi Watson, who plays William’s daughter-in-law, Jones became increasingly short of breath. He sensed his heart pounding and broke into a sweat. He felt as if he were underwater. After someone called an ambulance, an emergency responder resuscitated him using an oxygen tank. Denial was no longer an option.“You can see in his eyes that he made the right decision,” said the actress Jasmine Cephas Jones, Jones’s daughter and an original cast member of “Hamilton.” “I feel like I have my dad back.”Many of Jones’s characters, including Montrellous, the ex-convict he portrays in “Clyde’s,” are pacific, hard-luck men in pursuit of redemption. The playwright Lynn Nottage, who met Jones in the 2000s when both were members of the Labyrinth Theater Company, said she wrote Montrellous with Jones in mind.“He moves through the world like a cool jazz man, but is also generous and a nurturer,” Nottage said. “The same qualities that he brings to his acting are the qualities that he embodies in real life.”Jones at the Helen Hayes Theater, where “Clyde’s” is running through Jan. 16.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesJones was first drawn to performance as a young man during the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s. Born and raised in Paterson, N.J., he took Route 4 to Harlem on weekends to see jazz at St. Nick’s Pub, or plays at the National Black Theater or Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall) at Lincoln Center. After graduating with a theater degree from Ramapo College, in 1978, Jones immersed himself in the art scene in New York but was derailed when he developed a crippling heroin addiction. Encouraged by his mother, he moved to Los Angeles for a fresh start and spent four years working as a bus driver.Eventually, Jones turned to gambling and relapsed. He said he was arrested with 10 small bags of heroin and narrowly escaped a five-year prison sentence. A judge sent him back East — to a rehabilitation center in Albany, N.Y. — but the program didn’t take. Jones relapsed a second and third time. His mother, who had taken him in after Albany, kicked him out of the house and stopped answering his phone calls.“It was the tough love thing,” Jones said. “But it felt like everything I had loved was gone.”Jones hit rock bottom and said that for a while he slept on a bench in Eastside Park in Paterson. He was saved by an uncle who invited him to stay at his apartment in Harlem. It was there, in 1986, that he got clean for the last time.Jones and David Zayas in “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train.” Stephen Adly Guirgis’s portrait of lives behind bars debuted at the East 13th Street Theater in 2000.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn 1990, he starred in his first play, “Don’t Explain” by Samuel B. Harps, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on the Lower East Side. By then he was a father — Jasmine was born in 1989 — and went on to a wide-ranging stage career, starring in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train,” John Patrick Shanley’s “Storefront Church” and “Richard III.”“Clyde’s” is his first appearance on Broadway in seven years. After his lung transplant, Jones was determined to prove that he could still perform at the highest level, and for the standard eight shows per week. In his review of the play for The Times, Jesse Green wrote that Jones perfectly embodies his character, balancing a “Zen imperturbability with subtle dashes of pain and sacrifice.”“It was kind of miraculous to see him up there so full-bodied,” said Nottage, who, though aware of Jones’s operation, said it was never discussed during rehearsals this summer. “You would never know that he had any kind of struggle.”“Clyde’s” opens with a monologue, in which Montrellous attempts to persuade Clyde, played by Uzo Aduba, to change the menu at her restaurant. On opening night late last month, when the curtain lifted and revealed a packed crowd, including many of Jones’s friends and family, he said he was so overcome with emotion that he nearly screamed his first line.“I was so eager that all of the air from my diaphragm just came rushing out at once,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that I could be heard.” More