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      5 Comedy Specials to Watch: Josh Johnson, Rosebud Baker and More

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      Stand-up shows from Josh Johnson, Rosebud Baker, Craig Ferguson and others investigate Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, motherhood and the politics of dumplings.Ian Karmel, ‘Comfort Beyond God’s Foresight’(Stream it on YouTube)In his debut special, Ian Karmel, a veteran comic and writer for late night and award shows, turns his worst joke into one of his best by continually refusing to tell it. It’s a neat trick, characteristic of his unpredictably funny style. Explaining his hesitance, he makes a meal out of the idea that it once killed an audience member who died laughing. It’s one of many distinctive riffs.There’s a long act-out of a guy putting a bumper sticker on a car that is somehow very funny. He makes a CPAP machine hilarious. Part of his gift resides in the subtext. He can get a laugh from just saying “I like books” because it’s clear that he doesn’t mean it. There’s a finesse to his delivery. He speaks deliberately, never straining. He veers in unexpected directions, even on a sentence level. “I was on tour with my podcast,” he said, pivoting, “which is a sentence I sometimes think about saying to someone who fought in World War II.”Karmel is committed to skirting free of cliché, but not in an indulgent, hipster way. There’s nothing ironic about his mustache. His interests (sex, politics, figures of speech) are basic. It’s the way he handles them that stands out. For instance, his take on how worried we should be about our current political moment begins with an observation that many of the countries (Poland, Italy) that make the tastiest dumplings have at one point succumbed to fascism. “So, the question we need to ask ourselves as Americans is,” he says, pausing for a dramatic beat. “Does Hot Pockets count?Rosebud Baker, ‘The Mother Lode’(Stream it on Netflix)Many, if not most, stand-up specials are shot over multiple performances, then edited together to make it seem like one integrated whole. Rosebud Baker’s breakout new hour finds meaning in this benign deception, weaving together a performance from when she’s eight months pregnant and another one after she had the baby. Wearing the same color clothes, she cuts between the two even in the middle of a joke. This mixing is never addressed or commented on, but supports a question hovering over the special: Does having a child change you? Baker says it does, but her shots make a different argument.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: It Wants More

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      The Wilderness is becoming very vocal lately. And awfully demanding, too.Season 3, Episode 3: ‘Them’s the Brakes’In the third episode of this season of “Yellowjackets,” the Wilderness is playing mind games, but so are the girls. Which is worse? The fever dreams involving talking llamas and dangerous slap bracelets? Or the back-stabbing that comes with psychological manipulation? Honestly, it’s a toss up.This week’s episode highlights what has always been the strong suit of “Yellowjackets” — the ways in which being a teenage girl, or an emotionally stunted grown woman, dovetail with fantastical horror. The fights based on interpersonal drama can feel just as operatic as any hallucinogenic nightmare brought on by a mysterious woodland entity.Mari, perhaps the nastiest of the current Teen Yellowjackets, sums it up well when she is trapped in the cave with Ben. In Mari’s attempt to escape, they both were sprayed with mace, leaving them equally in pain and defeated. Ben starts lamenting his current situation, explaining how he only started being a high school substitute after tearing his ACL. He’s just a “normal guy” who goes to Dave Matthews Band concerts even though he doesn’t like them very much, he moans. The Wilderness wails.Mari responds with a story about when, as a 12-year-old, she watched her younger cousin die of cancer. It’s an oddly earnest tale from the usually sarcastic Mari. But she has a point. “I think maybe there are two versions of reality,” she says. “Most of the time the other one, the bad one, is just hiding or waiting, but it’s all real.” For Mari, it’s all one in the same: the supernatural horror they are facing and the cruelty of one another. Perhaps that’s why she herself is so cruel.Still, after what seems to be a shared moment of tenderness, she convinces Ben to let her go, promising to keep his secret. But Mari can’t discard her cynicism. As soon as she gets back to camp, her story falls apart. The other girls catch her in a lie, and she immediately spills Ben’s whereabouts.She invites her bad reality back to Ben. Shauna, furious, leads a witch hunt into the woods to find him with Mari as guide. They may as well be carrying torches and pitchforks. They do eventually find Ben, but they also encounter another terror.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      10 ‘Saturday Night Live’ Catchphrases That Readers Love

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      Hundreds of you told us about your favorite “Saturday Night Live” catchphrases. Here are the 10 that came up the most.To mark the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live,” we took a look at 50 memorable catchphrases from the show. We also asked readers to tell us about the ones you use with your friends and loved ones, and why. Hundreds of you responded. Here are the 10 phrases that came up the most, along with stories — some of which have been edited — you shared.‘More cowbell’“As a percussionist I think we ALWAYS need more rhythm in our lives. The skit spurred me to buy my own personal cowbell.”— Sheila Krueger, Phoenix“I teach art. There is often something just not quite right about a painting … it needs something.”— Gerard Brown, Philadelphia“We owned a restaurant. It was the perfect answer to any dilemma or flagging energy.”— Mary Beams, Grand Marais, Minn.“I play in a community band. When something doesn’t sound right someone will shout out ‘more cowbell’!”— Carol McMullen, Bowdoinham, MaineWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After Netflix Success, ‘Suits’ Opens Another Firm

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      The creator of the legal drama didn’t expect to make any more spinoffs. But after “Suits” became a rerun hit on Netflix, “Suits LA” was born.On a January morning, attractive people in tailored attire stood in a sun-skimmed California courtroom, arguing a motion in the murder trial.“Bring the venom!” the director, Anton Cropper, said encouragingly.This was on the set of “Suits LA,” a sibling of “Suits,” the legal procedural that ran on USA for nine seasons, from 2011 to 2019. (It is also a cousin of “Pearson,” a short-lived “Suits” spinoff.) Back in the courtroom, a clash over evidentiary rules turned vicious as one lawyer hissed at another, “You immoral piece of filth!” Time, it seemed, had not mellowed the mildly glamorous, majorly cutthroat world of “Suits.”The original “Suits” had done well on USA during its run — well enough to be renewed and renewed. But its hold on the cultural imagination was never especially strong and its reviews were, like the Season 1 suits themselves, muted. “Though the series begins amusingly enough, it quickly descends into cloying buddy escapade,” The New York Times wrote in 2011.It wasn’t much lamented when it ended, and as late as a year and a half ago, Aaron Korsh, the show’s creator, claimed another “Suits” spinoff was unlikely. Case closed.But when “Suits” moved to Netflix in mid 2023, it set a record for the most total weeks and the most consecutive weeks at the top of the Nielsen streaming ratings. Pacey, witty, cast with good-looking actors (Meghan Markle among them) and smart — but not so smart that you couldn’t follow along while also answering a few emails — “Suits” was the nice lawyer show an exhausted America needed.From left, Gabriel Macht, Patrick J. Adams and Rick Hoffman in “Suits.”Ian Watson/USA NetworkWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stephen Colbert Crowns Trump the Troll King

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      President Trump referring to himself as a king “is the thing presidents are not supposed to do,” Colbert said on Thursday.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.King of the RoadOn Wednesday, President Donald Trump pre-emptively announced on social media that New York City’s congestion pricing “IS DEAD, Manhattan and all of New York is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”Referring to himself as a king “is the thing presidents are not supposed to do,” Stephen Colbert said on Thursday.“Yes, the classic domain of an all-powerful king. Yes, it’s what all kings do: regulate local toll roads. [imitating a king] ‘Behold! Camelot has been saved, for I have pulled Excalibur from the median strip of the Cross Bronx Expressway.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But you know he’s trolling us, and we shouldn’t take the bait. But with this guy, every troll is a trial balloon. So, here we go. Mr. Trump, America will never bow before any king not named ‘Burger,’ for he hath made us all part of the royal family.” — STEPHEN COLBERTColbert remarked that even though Trump has been “busy cosplaying as the czar of the Lincoln Tunnel,” congestion pricing has significantly reduced traffic and increased support for Broadway shows and local businesses.“Now, obviously, this seems like a good thing, so Donald Trump ruined it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Governor Hochul immediately said congestion pricing wouldn’t end, posting, ‘The cameras are staying on.’ Governor, I love your defiance, but you know Trump loves cameras. This just means he’s going to do his next press conference strapped to the hood of a Camry.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (DOGE Dollars Edition)“DOGE-head Elon Musk says he’s considering giving 78 million Americans $5,000 per household. Half of these households will be benefiting from a DOGE dividend; the other are just his child support.” — GREG GUTFELD“I mean, the Dems are already floundering against DOGE, but DOGE plus a dividend? It’ll be more popular than that mall tour I did with Menudo.” — GREG GUTFELD“Perhaps it’s not exactly right. ‘Right’ would be all the cuts go to preventing a full default on the debt; otherwise, we’ll face an economic crisis that would make the Depression look like a trip to Sandals with Trace Gallagher.” — GREG GUTFELDThe Bits Worth WatchingTaylor Tomlinson explored the social media trend of mostly shirtless men doing meal prep on Thursday’s “After Midnight.”Also, Check This OutKenturah Davis, an artist in Altadena, is continuing the legacy of her parents, Keni Arts and Mildred Davis, who are also artists in Altadena, a community in Los Angeles County.Phylicia J.L. Munn for The New York TimesThis year’s Frieze Los Angeles highlights Altadena’s Black art legacy in the wake of the Eaton Fire. More

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      In Stephen Graham’s World, Nice Guys Finish First

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      The British actor, who stars in the new Hulu show “A Thousand Blows,” has built a career playing intimidating bruisers. But behind the scenes, he’s a peach.In 2012, the actor Stephen Graham and his wife were having a quiet dinner at a chain chicken joint in London when a young man approached the table. The man, James Nelson-Joyce, told Graham that he had just left drama school and wanted to be an actor, too. Many would have sent the 20-something away with some polite encouragement, but Graham asked for Nelson-Joyce’s email, and kept in touch, offering him regular advice and eventually recommending the younger actor to his agent.More than a decade later, Graham and Nelson-Joyce are playing brothers in “A Thousand Blows,” a rip-roaring new Hulu drama set in the grimy East End of London in the 1880s.Graham’s character, a bare-knuckle boxer known as the East End Gladiator, is of a type with the intimidating bruisers that he built his career playing, including a skinhead English nationalist in Shane Meadows’s “This Is England” and Al Capone in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”.But over cups of tea on a recent gray afternoon in London, Graham, now 51, choked up while recounting his history with Nelson-Joyce. It means a lot, he said, laughing at the tears in his eyes, to be able to pass “the baton on” to younger actors. It also reflects Graham’s ethos that “you’re never above anyone, and you’re never below anyone.”This egalitarian approach also applies when Graham works with some of Hollywood’s biggest names. In an email, Leonardo DiCaprio recalled that on the set of Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” more than 20 years ago, Graham’s “fearless unpredictability kept everyone on their toes. But more than that, he brought truth to every scene.”Graham with James Nelson-Joyce, who plays his brother in “A Thousand Blows.”Robert Viglasky for Disney+/ HuluWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Eastern Gate’ Is a Lean and Mean Spy Drama

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      Office politics are global politics in this intense Polish series on Max.Nothing is fair in love or war in the fast-paced Polish spy drama “The Eastern Gate” (in Polish and Russian, with subtitles or dubbed). The show, on Max, is intense, tricky and surprising. “Don’t trust anyone,” the characters constantly warn one another. And, well — don’t.Ewa (Lena Gora) is a Polish spy, and at the outset she is undercover at a glamorous party. Only she isn’t there to hobnob with her boyfriend’s icy mom, she is there to gather information about said mom’s involvement in nuclear bomb making.A lot of shows begin with scenes of shocking violence, but few stick with it the way “Gate” does. Outside of “Cobra Kai,” I’m not sure there’s a show with more kicking. Oh, there’s punching, eyeball-squishing, wrist-wrenching and plenty of shooting, too, but all the ways people can kick or be kicked are on vicious display here. It’s not morbid or gratuitous, though: It’s part of the show’s percussive insistence, heard also in its hostile knock-knock-knocks on car windows or in the startling clack of a bolt in lock.The initial mission does not go exactly to plan, and in the fallout Ewa gets sent to Minsk, Belarus, where her bosses suspect a leak within their own intelligence program. How do you look over your shoulder and listen to the voice in your earpiece all at once? The show is set in 2021, and Ewa et al.’s espionage work focuses on the relationships between Poland, Belarus and Russia, and on managing Russian influence as crises deepen and the body count grows.Office politics are global politics here, and international conflict is just an embodiment of interpersonal conflict: Sniffing out Russian moles and arguing about NATO policies are Ewa’s and her colleagues’ love language. Or maybe not “love,” but … maybe. On one mission, Ewa’s handler tells her the safe word is “Don’t hurt me.” When an intelligence official bungles an operation, his boss snarls, “I’ll start a [expletive] war against you myself.”“Gate” is lean and mean in the best ways. All the logs are going on the same fire here, and the heat does not abate. Three of its six episodes are available now, and new episodes on arrive Fridays. More

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      Inside Lorne Michaels’s Archive of ‘S.N.L’ History

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      But nothing tested the show like Sinead O’Connor’s musical appearance on Oct. 3, 1992, when she stunned viewers — and the producers — by tearing up a photograph of Pope John Paul II, declaring, “Fight the real enemy.” Two years earlier, O’Connor had drawn wide criticism for joining the cast member Nora Dunn in pulling […] More