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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Great Performances’ and ‘In the Heights’

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      PBS’s “Great Performances” debuts a Halloween-themed episode. And “In the Heights” airs on HBO.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, Oct. 25-31. Details and times are subject to change.MondayPOV: THINGS WE DARE NOT DO 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). A teenager pushes against gender expectations in a small village in western Mexico in this documentary from the filmmaker Bruno Santamaría. The film follows a young Ñoño, who begins exploring femininity, leading to difficult conversations with conservative family members, and challenges from others in the community.TuesdayTHE LAST O.G. 10 p.m. on TBS. In the Season 3 finale of this comedy series, Tray (Tracy Morgan) was the victim of a violent attack. In Season 4, which will debut with a pair of new episodes on Tuesday night, Tray returns to his Brooklyn community determined to better his life. This season will be the first without Morgan’s original co-star, Tiffany Haddish. It’s something of a mirror of the series’s first episodes: The show started with Tray returning home after 15 years of incarceration.WednesdayPOLTERGEIST (1982) 7 p.m. on AMC. Channels have spent the month of October airing an array of spooky movies. Take advantage of the final week with a double feature of horror classics: “Poltergeist,” about a suburban family plagued by ghosts, and THE EXORCIST (1973), about a possessed child, which airs on AMC at 9:30 p.m.ThursdayFrom left, Bill Murray, Chloë Sevigny and Adam Driver in “The Dead Don’t Die.” Abbot Genser/Focus FeaturesTHE DEAD DON’T DIE (2018) 5:30 p.m. on FX. The undead take their flesh with coffee and chardonnay in “The Dead Don’t Die,” Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy. Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloë Sevigny star as members of a small-town police department. In this world, a climate change driven apocalypse is set in motion by “polar fracking,” which disrupts the earth’s rhythms and causes the dead to awaken. There are familiar faces among the living and undead alike: Jarmusch assembled an unusually recognizable ensemble that includes Tilda Swinton, Selena Gomez, RZA, Steve Buscemi and Iggy Pop. “This is an end-of-the-world party with an appealing guest list and inviting, eccentric décor,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. “The consumption of human flesh just keeps it interesting,” Scott added, “and the crepuscular light — shot by the ghoulishly gifted cinematographer Frederick Elmes — gives it a bewitching, Halloween ambience.” In this apocalypse, even the beheading of a ghoul manages to feel coolly understated.WALKER 8 p.m. on the CW. Cordell Walker, the fictional Texas Ranger played by Chuck Norris in the 1990s show “Walker, Texas Ranger,” supplements his badge, cowboy hat and belt buckle with a smartphone in a saddle brown leather case in this modern-day reboot. The Season 1 finale saw this new version of Walker (played by Jared Padalecki) revisit the site of his wife’s murder along the U.S.-Mexico border, and gave a shocking revelation about who killed her. The second season debuts on Thursday night. In an interview with The New York Times in August, Padalecki hinted at what the show’s second season might have in store for his character. “Now he realizes he needs to be there for his kids, for his parents, for his brother, for his work partners, and for himself,” Padalecki said. “We’ll see in Season 2 that Walker has found some degree of closure.”FridayGREAT PERFORMANCES: NOW HEAR THIS 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The violinist and conductor​​ Scott Yoo brings a group of musicians to a historic manor home in the Berkshires to record works by Beethoven in this latest entry of PBS’s “Great Performances” series. But like any Halloween-weekend program worth its candy corn, this one has some spooky twists: The group performs a seasonally-appropriate piece in Beethoven’s Op. 70, No. 1, the so-called Ghost Trio, and the episode also brings in dramatized fictional conversations between Beethoven and Sigmund Freud. (Apparently nothing is scarier than confronting one’s inner demons.)SaturdayMelissa Barrera and Anthony Ramos in “In the Heights.”Macall Polay/Warner Bros.IN THE HEIGHTS (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. Since this movie adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical “In the Heights” debuted in July, Miranda’s best-known work, “Hamilton,” has returned to Broadway. For those who enjoy the comforts of a sofa, “In the Heights” can bring a taste of Broadway-scale spectacle to your living room. Directed by Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”), this lavish movie musical stars Anthony Ramos as Usnavi, a New Yorker who runs a bodega in Washington Heights. Usnavi dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, where he lived as a child. He sings about the pursuit of that dream, and his neighborhood harmonizes with him. Though the musical opened on Broadway in 2008, the film version feels “as permanent as the girders of the George Washington Bridge,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. “It’s a piece of mainstream American entertainment in the best sense — an assertion of impatience and faith, a celebration of communal ties and individual gumption, a testimony to the power of art to turn struggles into the stuff of dreams.”SundayDOCTOR WHO 8 p.m. on BBC America. Jodie Whittaker will return for her third and final season as the protagonist of this long running British sci-fi show on Sunday night. The new season will kick off with a Halloween-themed episode, and is also set to be the final one for the show’s current lead writer, Chris Chibnall. He has taken on a new challenge for the occasion: This season will tell a single story in six episodes. More

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      ‘Insecure’ Season 5, Episode 1 Recap: No Time to Be Insecure

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      The characters of “Insecure” set off to close out their final season with intention.During the first episode of the final season of HBO’s “Insecure,” we meet “Throwback Issa,” the college-aged version of Issa staring back at her in the bathroom mirror.This time, Issa doesn’t rap to her reflection. Instead, they catch up and she looks at her younger self endearingly. “I forgot how cute I looked with twists,” Issa says to her reflection. And the younger version of herself is struck by who she’s become. “Issa?! Is that me?” she asks.After they spend a minute admiring their teeth, they awkwardly cut one another off, as if they are both thinking and doing the same thing. In this tango you can tell that while Issa does not look like she used to — now she has a more auburn hair color and doesn’t wear braces — she is very much the girl she used to be, in essence.“Throwback Issa” was the most literal reflection upon the past in an episode set at Issa and her L.A. crew’s 10-year-reunion at Stanford, their old stamping ground. The crew looks as good as ever. Kelli and Tiffany in Gucci? Yes. (Tiffany only wore pink and green the entire episode). Issa and Molly in classed up Stanford sweaters? An aesthetic I can subscribe to.It was a weekend that involved plenty of time traveling. We saw college Issa admiring but also being slightly disappointed in current Issa. Later, on an alumni panel, current Issa worries about future Issa’s time to do the things that she wants to do. Molly finds herself thinking back about her younger, more bullish self. Kelli flies too far into a future where she no longer exists, and doesn’t like her legacy. The characters are looking back to see how far they’ve come and learn where they want to go.The episode also picked up the pieces of the more recent past. Last season, we left Issa in an entanglement with Lawrence, who had recently found out that his ex, Condola, was pregnant. At the time, Issa was considering moving to San Francisco with Lawrence, who had just found a job there. The pregnancy was a brick thrown through the window of their relationship.Issa and Molly’s relationship, the one viewers tune in for, was on thin ice and the heaviness of their love lives threatened to fracture it. Their dreamy hangout scenes were gone — now there was only awkwardness.This week there was movement on each of these fronts. Issa and Molly are in agreement on what they want: to move forward, to grow past the obstacles in front of them. They are done trying things on, they know more about who they aren’t and what they don’t want in their lives. “I know you’re a big-time lawyer now,” reflection Issa says. “No, I never really wanted to be a lawyer,” current day Issa responded, with a certainty that escaped her younger self.During the panel, Issa is joined onstage by a filmmaker, a start-up founder and the advertising art director at Coca-Cola, all alumni. Issa was invited as an entrepreneur and founder of “The Blocc” — we don’t know much about the company (and it’s not clear if she does either) but I love this for her.When the moderator asks the panelists when they found stability in their life, Issa doesn’t have an answer. She is honest with her audience and tells them that she’s unsure and that she may be wasting her time, but she’s also talking to herself. It’s as if by hearing herself talk about her latest endeavor, she comes to understand the risks associated with it in a way she hadn’t before.Throughout the episode, Issa is so focused on her future and past that she is incapable of being present. Whenever she is asked what the name of her company stands for, she stammers, unable to remember. She may have her own company now, but she is still managing apartments and driving a Lyft. This all appears hard for Issa to reconcile but I get the impression that she eventually will. This isn’t “Game of Thrones.”Back in the quad, Molly, three-months after her break up with Andrew, is trying to be a good friend to Issa because that’s what Molly needs from her. After the struggles of last season, Molly now seems ready to triage the friendship, softly asking Issa, “Are we going to be OK?”Molly also seems to be caught in a flashback on campus. While on a walk with Issa she remembers the confidence that she used to have. “Freshman year, we thought we had it all figured out.” The fire that used to define her, her tenacity and ambition, is absent. But I doubt that it’s gone forever.Kelli, on the other hand, is believed to be dead by the organizers of the reunion — she was marked as deceased in the program and even appeared in an in-memoriam video. (“Stanky Legg” by the GS Boyz plays in tribute when her face appears.)At first, she thinks it might be good for her to “go off the grid,” but then something else sets in. When she realizes that she is only remembered for her allergy to kale and solid stanky leg, it stops being fun for her. Kelli’s modus operandi has generally been to go with the flow, but maybe it’s time to swim upstream.When the girls are on their way to Reggae Gold, an old haunt in Oakland, Kelli is not as amped as the other girls. She is obviously disturbed and interrupts a singalong to The-Dream’s “I Luv Your Girl,” an on-the-way-to-the-club ritual, to let them know why she isn’t feeling the party vibes. She is quickly dismissed. Maybe playing pretend dead hit too close to home for her.The next morning at a diner, they give Kelli an appropriate in-memoriam tribute. When they leave, Molly and Issa walk past three young giggly girls, one carrying a poster that read “take action.” The girls apologize for bumping into them. Issa looks back at them as if they seemed familiar, it was like seeing their younger selves walk right past them. As those girls fade behind them, Issa and Molly tell one another they want to move forward.Then Issa proceeds to do so. When she flies home, Lawrence is waiting for her at LAX in a black hoodie, looking sorry and feeling sorry. (Yes, I’m still mad at Lawrence for getting Condola pregnant while trying to mend things with Issa.)What is different about Lawrence’s pitifulness is that Issa is no longer willing to take part in it. She breaks up with him and he immediately understands. The breakup was quiet — no arguments or shock, just an understanding between two adults. It was a more mature and cleaner breakup than their traumatic first one.Time is running out for “Insecure” and perhaps also, the premiere seemed to suggest, for maybes and half-steps as the characters consider the direction of their lives, beyond young adulthood. There’s not much time left to be insecure. More

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      ‘Succession’ Recap, Season 3, Episode 2: ‘Judasing’

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      Kendall makes his pitch. Even with his siblings, he sounds like a guest on “Power Lunch.”Season 3, Episode 2: ‘Mass in Time of War’There’s a mad genius to the way Kendall Roy uses language. Here’s a guy who essentially learned to communicate by listening to cable TV panelists, leadership conference speakers and the macho bluster of his venture capitalist college bros. Now, in an ever-intensifying national spotlight, Ken is tossing around jargon with a frenzied, improvisational flair, like a jazz singer scatting in double-time.In this week’s episode, “Mass in Time of War,” he drops words like “epiphenomenal” and phrases like “let’s clean-slate this” and “detoxify our brand and we can go supersonic.” Even when his siblings ask how he’s doing, Ken answers with a studied earnestness, like a guest on “Power Lunch.” (“Certain amount of regret, but y’know … pretty cleansed.”)“Mass in Time of War” feels more like the second part of last week’s installment than it does a typical “Succession” episode. The Roys don’t travel anywhere special or gather for any major event; they’re just continuing in the same crisis mode they were in when the season began. Logan is still in Sarajevo, fretting over his inability to get any of his progeny on the phone. And the kids? Well, they actually do get together someplace unusual: the bedroom of Kendall’s daughter, Sophie. (Roman, feigning shock after Ken calls his siblings to her room: “He remembered his kid’s name.”)Once Roman, Siobhan and (surprisingly) Connor are huddled up, Kendall makes his pitch, with buzzwords flying around the room. His argument is a mix of the self-righteous and the pragmatic. On the one hand, he tries to hold himself up as the family’s noble truth-teller, finally calling for an end to decades of privileged, exploitative, chauvinist “vibes” at Waystar. He applies the most pressure to Shiv, getting under her skin by saying he’s doing what she failed to do as the Roy’s “token woman wonk woke snowflake.” “Right now, I’m the real you,” he needles.But Kendall also makes a persuasive case that the only way for the Roy children to save Waystar and to hold onto to any kind of sociopolitical clout is to oust Logan, who is weak enough right now that a unified front from his sons and daughter could finish him.Indeed, we see signs of Logan struggling throughout this episode. Last week, he was ordering his team to retain three “white shoe” law firms and to get a bunch of the other top attorneys tied up with conflicts of interest. This week, Logan has trouble getting anyone from his family to check in — with the exception of his wife, Marcia (Hiam Abbass), who comes back in part because she hates his kids and would love to help destroy Ken.And then there’s this: On their own, the younger Roys appear to be flailing. Although Siobhan pretends to keep her husband in the loop, he has to hear from Greg that she has sneaked away to Kendall’s ex’s apartment. She unconvincingly reminds Tom that she loves him — and he responds in kind, adding, “Good to know we don’t have an unbalanced love portfolio” — but she hesitates to tell him anything about who’s in line to become Waystar’s new “King Potato.” And when she finally does return to Logan, he promises to give her a fancy corporate title of “president” that can mean “whatever you want it to mean” … which, in Logan-speak, means it’ll probably be meaningless.Even more pathetically, Roman gets a similar runaround from Gerri. When he shows up at her new Waystar chief executive office, cracking his usual bad-boy jokes about how she chained herself “to a fire hydrant that spews out cultural insensitivity and sperms,” she quickly hustles him right back out the door. She offers him vague assurances that she plans to start working him into the quarterly earning calls “as a signal,” though it seems fairly obvious that the newly empowered Gerri is in no hurry to cede anything to Roman, of all people.Kendall certainly sounds sure of himself. But as we’re reminded in a couple of key scenes while he is away from his siblings, he is still beholden to Waystar’s insurgent board members, Stewy (Arian Moayed) and Sandy, who poke at him by sending a model of a Trojan horse to his wife’s apartment. And as Ken is urgently trying to chart a bold course for Waystar’s future, his lawyer is trying to get him to focus on the Brightstar scandal and his potential legal liabilities.As for Connor … well, he’s Connor. He seems to answer Kendall’s request for a meeting in part because he is happy to be included and in part because Logan made him fly home on a disappointing international flight with “a selection of heavily refrigerated cheeses.” Why did Ken want Connor to be a part of this? It may be because he’s less interested in securing Waystar’s legacy than he is in humiliating his father in their big game by taking all of his pieces of the board.Still, there are two problems with Kendall’s “we’re all in this together” plan. For one, he still thinks it makes the most sense for him to be the one sitting at the head of the table after the coup, and neither Siobhan nor Roman agree. Two, they’re all terrified of Logan — who rattles them when he sends a box of doughnuts to their “secret” meeting. “I don’t think he ever fails or ever will,” Roman admits.One by one, the siblings file out, each taking an insult from Ken with them. First Connor is out (“You’re irrelevant”), then Roman (“You’re a moron”) and then Shiv, who is told she has gotten this far only because “girls count double now” … thus revealing just how committed Kendall really is to “changing the cultural climate.”Yet during all of this running around behind other people’s backs — “Judasing,” as Kendall calls it — the person who may ultimately hold the key to everyone’s future is absent. Greg, who confesses to Ken his wariness, saying “I’m kind of too young to be in congress so much,” rejects Waystar’s chosen lawyer and takes advice from his moralizing grandfather, Ewan Roy (James Cromwell), a man who considers Ken to be “a self-regarding popinjay.” They end up in the office of an old left-wing lawyer (played by Peter Riegert), who tells Greg that his two priorities will be his client’s well-being and to “expose the structural contradictions of capitalism as reified in the architecture of corporate America.”In a way, this is exactly what Kendall wants to do. That is, if he actually believes all the words that keep tumbling, endlessly, out of his mouth.Due DiligenceLogan is insistent on having familiar faces around him and all but demands that his inner circle bring Marcia back into the fold. As Hugo eventually explains to her, “We would love to get back, visually, to the Logan we all know.” Marcia’s lawyer, though, lets Hugo know this will be a costly return — albeit less expensive or embarrassing than a divorce and a corporate board breakup.Perhaps in reaction to his humiliating phone call with Logan last week, Roman goes full brat in this episode, making inappropriate comments to Gerri (“How are your daughters? You got pictures?”) and responding to Kendall’s request that he not touch anything in Sophie’s room by immediately putting his hands near various objects on her dresser.Something about Roman’s presence brings out the brat in Shiv, too. As Kendall pontificates about how Waystar is “a declining empire inside of a declining empire,” she interjects with, “Unsubscribe.” Then she hits Roman where he lives, suggesting that he can’t keep preening around like a stud unless he’s willing to, y’know, consummate. (When he storms out, Shiv shrugs. “It’s not my fault he has a sex thing.”)File this away for later: Marcia reminds Logan that he has damaging dirt on Kendall. He waves off that advice, saying, “You drop some bombs, you get burnt too.” But if Logan starts to lose, badly? It could be time for the nuclear option. More

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      Jay Ellis Comes Home to Harlem

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      The “Insecure” actor goes on a walking tour of his adopted neighborhood.Jay Ellis was buying snacks at a corner bodega in Harlem when a woman in a crop top and Ray-Bans approached him. “Oh my God, I’m so happy!” she said.This was on a sticky Monday in September, halfway through a walking tour of Harlem, where Mr. Ellis had lived, on and off, in the mid-2000s, when he was a model trying to break into acting. After years of sporadic work, he landed a starring role on BET’s “The Game,” a comedy-drama set in the world of professional football, then booked the romantic lead on the HBO comedy “Insecure,” playing Lawrence, the boyfriend of the series creator Issa Rae’s Issa.At the end of the show’s first season, Issa cheats on Lawrence. Lawrence retaliates by dangling the promise of a reunion, then bedding a co-worker. Which means that attitudes toward the character — and Mr. Ellis — are pretty divisive. (“Insecure” returns for a fifth and final season on Oct. 24.)“I’m not a fan of yours,” the woman in the bodega clarified. “That payback wasn’t right. Nonetheless you’re a great actor.”Mr. Ellis, 39, favored her with his Sunday morning smile, then left with his water and unsalted cashews.A skyscraper of a man with dizzying charisma, Mr. Ellis, 6-foot-3, had overdressed for the day in jeans, a Comme des Garçons striped shirt, a slate jacket and sneakers the blinding white of new veneers. He met the tour guide, Neal Shoemaker, at the offices of Harlem Heritage Tours on Malcolm X Boulevard. Together they set off for a shambolic stroll through the neighborhood.“You may meet my mom any minute now,” Mr. Shoemaker said as he led Mr. Ellis onto the basketball court at the center of Martin Luther King Jr. Towers. Fourteen floors up, Mr. Shoemaker’s aunt waved furiously from a window. Mr. Shoemaker shouted up to her, teasingly introducing Mr. Ellis as her “new nephew.”Mr. Ellis bought some snacks at a bodega, where he was approached by fans. Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesNext, they walked through the African market near West 116th Street and past the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, where incense clouded the late summer air and a nearby cafe advertised male enhancements and veggie burgers. Mr. Ellis had barely been back in 15 years. The burned-out brownstones had been renovated, he noted. And the police presence seemed lighter.The tour continued past Minton’s Playhouse and alongside Marcus Garvey Park, the site of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that was chronicled in the documentary “Summer of Soul,” which Mr. Ellis had just seen. He stopped outside the house where Maya Angelou once lived, admiring the ivy that tumbled from the lintel.Throughout the walk, fans stopped Mr. Ellis for greetings and pictures — “Take it with me, not of me,” Mr. Ellis said to an excitable middle-aged woman who had halted her car just to snap him. Friends and relatives stopped Mr. Shoemaker, too, and Mr. Ellis, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and baby daughter, seemed a little jealous of the humming street life.“It’s the music mecca for Black culture,” Mr. Ellis said. “It’s the style mecca. Religiously, it’s a mecca. I come here, and I’m like, ‘Why am I living in LA.?’”Mr. Ellis plays Lawrence in “Insecure,” the boyfriend of the series creator Issa Rae, right.Merie W. Wallace/HBOMr. Ellis, the only child of an Air Force family, moved to Los Angeles just after his Harlem years. He briefly gave up on acting, then recommitted. A plucky hustle — he pretended that a casting agent had recommended him — hooked him a decent manager, and after a couple of years of acting classes, he began to book roles.None has meant as much to him as Lawrence, a character who struggles with the obligations of Black masculinity. Lawrence wasn’t supposed to make it past Season 1, but something about Mr. Ellis’s layered portrayal made him a fan favorite. And a least favorite.“I always say that if people are mad at me, if people are happy with me, if they’re sad or whatever, then I did my job,” he said. “Even if you hate Lawrence, I did my job because you felt something. I hope you love him because I love him. But I get it if you don’t.”Are Lawrence and Issa endgame? Mr. Ellis knew better than to comment. “I want both of them to be happy,” he said diplomatically. “I hope that it’s with each other.”He has already begun his post-“Insecure” career, with a starring role in “Top Gun: Maverick,” due out next year. (His character’s nickname? Payback.) He recently signed onto a romantic comedy, “Somebody I Used to Know,” and is the co-creator of the podcast “Written Off,” which features the work of formerly incarcerated authors.Mr. Ellis also has a starring role in “Top Gun: Maverick,” due out next year. Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesMr. Ellis followed Mr. Shoemaker past Dapper Dan’s atelier, into the Harlem Haberdashery and cater-corner to Harlem Shake, where Mr. Ellis would return for a post-walk burger. On 125th Street, he stopped to read the text on a monument to the politician and civil rights leader Adam Clayton Powell Jr.The tour ended at the Apollo Theater, “where stars are born, legends are made,” Mr. Shoemaker said. Mr. Ellis is already a star, but he still fantasizes about appearing in one of its amateur nights. Would he sing? Tell a joke?“All of it,” Mr. Ellis said, flashing that slow dance smile. “I’d do it all.”Mr. Shoemaker pointed to an unoccupied rectangle on the Apollo’s Walk of Fame, next to Lionel Richie. “I can see Jay Ellis right there,” he said.Mr. Ellis posed for a photo with a fan or two, including a teenager who recognized him from the thriller “Escape Room.” Then he and Mr. Shoemaker said a friendly goodbye.“Appreciate you, chief,” Mr. Ellis called as he headed back down 125th Street. “Tell your mama I’m coming, I’m hungry.” More

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      Grace Van Patten, a Breakout Star of ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’

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      The young actress made her television debut at 8 on “The Sopranos.”Name: Grace Van PattenAge: 24Hometown: ManhattanCurrently Lives: In an apartment with her family in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn.Claim to Fame: Ms. Van Patten is known for supporting roles in “The Meyerowitz Stories” and “Nine Perfect Strangers,” along with starring roles in several indie films, including “Under the Silver Lake” and “Good Posture.”In 2017, she also performed off-Broadway in “The Whirligig.” “I’m dying to do another play as soon as it’s back up and safe,” she said. “I find it to be one of the most terrifying things, but also the most fulfilling and challenging.”Big Break: Ms. Van Patten made her television debut when she was 8, in episodes of “The Sopranos” directed by her father, Timothy Van Patten. She has always loved acting, but didn’t pursue it seriously until after graduating from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in 2014. Her breakthrough role came in 2017, when she played Adam Sandler’s daughter in Noah Baumbach’s film “The Meyerowitz Stories,” alongside Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.Latest Project: Ms. Van Patten played a grieving college student in “Nine Perfect Strangers,” the Netflix mini-series based on the Liane Moriarty novel and starring Nicole Kidman as a witchy Russian wellness guru.“Whether you want better skin or want to lose weight or want to be less sad, we all want that instant fix,” Ms. Van Patten said. “But if you actually want things to change, it takes a lot of work.” She also starred in the fantasy drama film “Mayday,” which was released in September.“I love it here,” said Grace van Patten about New York City. “It’ll always be home.”MEGHAN MARIN for The New York TimesNext Thing: Ms. Van Patten will star in her first TV series, “Tell Me Lies,” a coming-of-age drama on Hulu adapted from a novel by Carola Lovering. “I’ve never been attached to something this early on, so it’s new for me,” she said.The story line, which follows a tumultuous relationship over a decade, reminds her of “Blue Valentine,” one of her favorite films, and “Normal People,” another Hulu series. “‘Normal People’ did such a good job showing the stillness of relationships and the vulnerability and sadness,” she said. “This is like raging ‘Normal People.’”Wanderlust: Ms. Van Patten wants to move out of her parents’ home but isn’t ready to commit to Los Angeles. “I’ve been all over the place for the past few years and I’m definitely craving a place of my own, but I just don’t know where yet,” she said. Her father will be in London next year, so she plans to spend time there. But she knows she’ll return to New York eventually: “I love it here, it’ll always be home.” More

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      Trevor Noah Predicts Trump Will Post Dares on Truth Social

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      Noah did an impression of Trump posting on his new social media site: “OK, I shared my truth, now I dare you to hang Mike Pence.”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.Truth or DareDonald Trump’s new social media app, Truth Social, was the talk of late night on Thursday. Trevor Noah touched on the site’s terms of service requirements for the “truths” users can post.“And, also, you know what this means: If Trump is posting ‘truths,’ knowing him, eventually he’s going to start posting ‘dares.’ ‘OK, I shared my truth, now I dare you to hang Mike Pence,’” Noah joked while doing a Trump impression.“In a press release, Trump explained the need for his new social network: ‘We live in a world where the Taliban has a presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American president has been silenced.’ I don’t think Trump’s making the point that he thinks he is in that. All he’s telling us is that he’s more offensive than the Taliban.” — JAMES CORDEN“The site was briefly accessible to the public last night, and was immediately overrun by trolls, including one who started a fake account under the former president’s name that posted a photo of a pig defecating on its own scrotum. Are they sure that was a fake account? Because it feels on brand.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yo, this man is a legend. He creates a free speech website, and immediately was like, ‘OK, here’s what you can’t say.’ It’s like if the first rule of Fight Club was, ‘Hey, hey, hey, no fighting! No fighting! No fighting! We work [expletive] out here.” — TREVOR NOAH“At the same time, though, you know this is going to backfire, because half of the fun of being on social media is talking [expletive] about the platform.” — TREVOR NOAH“How is Trump of all people going to make a rule about disparaging comments? I mean, this man roasts people so much, he has to do it at auctioneer speed.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Truth and Consequences Edition)“The man who told over 30,000 lies in office has started something called Truth. He’s also launched a new makeup line called Human Skin.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s the perfect site for any person who ever wondered, ‘What if Twitter was only the bad parts?’” — JAMES CORDEN“The former president also announced that he is setting up his own streaming service. Well, his — his second streaming service.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“According to the press release, they’ll proudly broadcast ‘nonwoke entertainment programming.’ That’s right, nonwoke! If you can stay awake, your money back.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s going to feature the former president’s favorites like ‘Who Wants to Spank a Millionaire?” ‘The Unmasked Singer,” and ‘Only Fascists in the Building.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Thursday’s “Late Late Show,” James Corden explained how he was able to procure Celine Dion’s chewed gum as a gift for Adele.Also, Check This OutIllustrations by Ross MacDonaldClassic crime novels by the likes of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, and Dashiell Hammett still hold up today. More

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      Late Night Suggests a Few New Names for Facebook

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      Stephen Colbert proposed names like “Aunt Brenda’s Three-Paragraph Rant-a-torium” or “Best Fun Times America Website.”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.Extreme MakeoverLate night hosts couldn’t resist needling Facebook on Wednesday with news of the company’s impending name change.“They’re still facing accusations of endangering teens, spreading misinformation and destroying democracy. So they’re doing the right thing: rebranding the company with a new name,” Stephen Colbert said.“But that new name is a closely guarded secret that’s not widely known, even among Facebook senior leadership. Well, that’s surprising. Facebook has leadership?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Just in case they haven’t settled on one yet, we here at ‘The Late Show’ have come up with a few appropriate names, like Pinsurrectionist, DikTok, Aunt Brenda’s Three-Paragraph Rant-a-torium, Best Fun Times America Website and the Washington Football Team.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, the website will still be Facebook but the company is going to have a new name. And I don’t know if this is a good idea. I mean, Facebook is one of those iconic brands like Hiroshima and Ted Bundy — do you really want to lose that name recognition?” — TREVOR NOAH“But I’m excited to find out what the new name is going to be. Like you know, I don’t know, maybe they’ll go with Myspace. I mean they already took everything else from them, might as well finish the job. Killed my friend Tom!” — TREVOR NOAH“And here’s the craziest part, I don’t know if it’s been announced yet. The new name — the new name for Facebook? Steven.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Replacebook Edition)“Moving on, Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name. This comes as the company continues to expand its services beyond traditional social media. Facebook’s aim with the rebrand is to, quote, ‘confuse the [expletive] out of everybody’s parents.’” — JAMES CORDEN“Facebook is planning to rebrand the company. They’ve been plagued with scandals around misinformation, hate groups, selling people’s data, but they’re like ‘Yeah, we’ll change the name. That’s the problem, the name.’” — JAMES CORDEN“First, I don’t think the name is really the problem that people have with Facebook. Society is like ‘Yo, you are destroying democracy’ and Facebook is like ‘We hear you — what if we went by Bookface?’” — TREVOR NOAH“Second, if you want to change your image, I don’t think you should trust Mark Zuckerberg to do that. I mean, have you seen this man’s haircut? It looks like he goes to the barber and asks him to give him the colonial child. You trust him with your makeover?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingIssa Rae described how she felt the pressure to please fans with the fifth and final season of “Insecure.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday Night“Dune” stars Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya will appear on Thursday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutTimothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica in “Dune.” Paul is considerably less complicated and conflicted onscreen than he is on the page, our critic writes.Chia Bella James/Warner Bros.Speaking of Chalamet, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of “Dune” is a sweeping and intimate take on Frank Herbert’s future-shock epic. More

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      Netflix Employees Walk Out to Protest Dave Chappelle's Special

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      Amid cheers and chants of “Team trans!,” dozens of Netflix employees walked out of a company office building in Los Angeles on Wednesday to protest a recent Dave Chappelle stand-up special, in one of the most visible signs of worker unrest in the history of the streaming service.Critics inside and outside the company have said that Mr. Chappelle’s show, “The Closer,” promotes bigotry against transgender people. The protest put the tech company directly at the center of broader cultural debates about transphobia, free speech and employee activism. Throughout the day, #NetflixWalkOut was a top trending topic on Twitter.Carrying signs that read “Hey Netflix: Do Better” and “Transphobia Is Not a Joke,” the employees joined more than a hundred supporters and activists who had begun rallying a couple of hours before. In addition to the scene in Los Angeles, some Netflix staffers working remotely shut their laptops and called off work for the day at noon. It’s unclear how many at Netflix, which had more than 9,000 full-time employees globally at the end of last year, participated in the virtual walkout.Netflix has found itself directly at the center of broader cultural debates about transphobia, free speech and employee activism.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAt the protest in Los Angeles, Joey Soloway, the creator of the Amazon Prime comedy series “Transparent,” urged Netflix executives to add a transgender person to its corporate board “this week,” and pushed the entertainment industry as a whole to begin hiring significantly more transgender people, adding: “I want to pitch to a trans person. I would love to have a trans person give me notes on my story. I want a trans agent. I want a trans manager. I want so many trans critics at newspapers.”Under bright skies, activists and supporters vastly outnumbered a small group of counterprotesters who carried signs that read “Jokes Are Funny” and “Netflix, Don’t Cancel Free Speech.” There were a few minor skirmishes, but the atmosphere was mostly peaceful, with supporters chanting, “We want accountability. When do we want it? Now!” and, “Trans lives matter.”One of the organizers of the protest was Ashlee Marie Preston, who was featured in the Netflix documentary “Disclosure,” about Hollywood’s impact on the transgender community. In an interview, Ms. Preston said she was there because Netflix employees have to be “very careful” about speaking to the news media. Ashlee Marie Preston, who was featured in the Netflix documentary “Disclosure,” about Hollywood’s impact on the transgender community, helped organize the rally.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesB. Pagels-Minor, who is transgender and was fired last week from their job as a program manager at Netflix, read a list of demands that employees had for the company. Among them were hiring more transgender people and including disclaimers for content that is criticized for being transphobic. Netflix has said Mx. Pagels-Minor was fired for sharing sensitive documents outside the company; a lawyer for the former employee denied that her client shared information with the news media.One employee, Gabrielle Korn, wrote on Twitter: “We aren’t fighting WITH Netflix. We’re fighting FOR Netflix. We all know how great it can be and that it’s not there yet.”Though Mr. Chappelle’s special has come under fire, there are some who have defended him, including the comic Damon Wayans, who told TMZ last week, “We were slaves to P.C. culture and he just, you know — as an artist, he’s van Gogh. He cut his ear off. He’s trying to tell us it’s OK.”The rally attracted counterprotesters, including one who was pushed and asked to leave the premises.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAmid the rolling public relations crisis, Netflix executives have begun to adopt a conciliatory tone while still remaining supportive of Mr. Chappelle.Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive, gave several interviews on Tuesday in which he said that he had “screwed up” communication with employees after the outcry and that he should have discussed the controversy with more “humanity.” Mr. Sarandos also conceded that shows, series and movies on Netflix did have an impact on the real world, something he denied in an initial statement.Similarly, hours before Wednesday’s protest, the company said in a statement that it supported the walkout.“We value our trans colleagues and allies and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused,” Netflix said in a statement. “We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.” More