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      The Comedian Looking for Something All of America Can Laugh At

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      Partway through his latest special, “Lonely Flowers,” the comedian Roy Wood Jr. tells the story of the time he accidentally hired a white photographer. Or, as he corrects himself, he hired a photographer who he did not think would be white until he showed up. Whenever he travels to a city for a gig, he explains, artists who live there reach out to him to offer their services. He respects their hustle and sometimes accepts those offers, like the one he got from a guy who wanted to take some pictures of him. “Come on take the pictures,” Wood wrote back. “I’ll see you next week, Deon!”Wood drops Deon’s name casually, letting the audience pick up on the joke before he has to explain it. As they start to lose it, Wood joins them in astonishment. Pitching his body forward, throwing his arms out and bugging his eyes, he yells: “You see what I’m saying? I don’t know no white Deons either! Never met one!”Deon ends up being a bald, unimaginably chiseled military veteran with menacing tattoos consisting of “an animal, a death threat then a Bible verse” decorating his arms, the kind of white man that a Black person might not want to be left alone with. Wood is terrified of him — he makes sure to pay him up front — but he finds him unexpectedly sympathetic. It turns out that after returning from service abroad, Deon feels intensely isolated, and photography gives him a sense of purpose.Onstage, Wood is unhurried, an amiable man who, despite being 46, has the countenance of a churchgoing grandfather who still starches his Sunday suit. He is a master of the leisurely, even comforting, story that plays to his audience’s expectations of what is good, kind and virtuous, only to foil those expectations with a well-timed word or mischievous glance.When I first watched “Lonely Flowers,” I could feel this story about Deon teetering toward the saccharine: Maybe we can all get along, or at least get along better, if we just listen to one another. But then Wood lets us in on a disturbing detail: “I like the camera,” Deon told him, “ ’cause, you know, I get to look down the crosshair and still shoot people.” Wood’s look of earnest sympathy dissolves, and we’re left wondering how to feel about Deon after all.Then the joke rounds yet another corner: Wood turns serious again, recalling how sincerely Deon thanked him in the greenroom, shaking his hand firmly and looking him right in the eye. “I was like, Wooowww,” Wood says, his voice dropping to a stage whisper, seemingly humbled by the interaction. But then we reach the other side of his pause: “He was about to kill some people.” Wood imagines Deon at home, cleaning his rifle right up to the moment Wood contacts him. “We’ll never know how many lives I saved,” Wood says triumphantly, “because I took a chance on a white man!”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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      Stephen Colbert Would Like to Know Who’s in Charge Here

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      The “Late Show” host was taken aback by the White House’s claim that Elon Musk doesn’t run DOGE: “It’s literally named after his favorite meme!”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.SpatchcockedThe so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, continues to cut a swath through the Civil Service. Or as Stephen Colbert put it on Wednesday, “our government is getting spatchcocked by Elon Musk and his post-pubescent pink slip troopers.”“Naturally, the federal workers in their path of wanton destruction are experiencing anger, chaos and confusion, which, coincidentally, are also the Secret Service code names for Trump, Elon and Don Jr.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It turns out being an unelected donor running an unauthorized employee kill squad might get you sued at some point in the future. So in new legal filings, the White House claims that Elon Musk is not in charge at DOGE. What? It’s literally named after his favorite meme!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This is the most confusing leadership structure since Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Who is Chris? Why does he seem to belong to Ruth?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Elon and the DOGE-bags have fired so many people so quickly, in so many critical areas, with so little thought beforehand, that the government is now scrambling to rehire the nuclear staff it fired on Friday. These are folks involved with designing, building and overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile after concerns grew that their dismissal could jeopardize national security. I share those concerns.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But here’s the wrinkle and the rub: The government has struggled to reach the people that were fired after they were locked out of their federal email accounts. So now we got a bunch of [expletive] people with a lot of time on their hands who know how to build nuclear weapons.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Rehiring people on Tuesday that you fired on Friday does not scream ‘government efficiency.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (On Principle Edition)“And with Trump doing so much so fast, leave it to the Never Trumpers to do what little they can to make a fast buck. An event called the Principles First Summit convenes this weekend in D.C. What are their principles? Well, judging by the lineup, cashing in on whatever’s left of Trump envy.” — GREG GUTFELD“The biggest and most bitterest names in the anti-Trump world will be there: Adam Kinzinger, Michael Steele, Bill Kristol and George Conway. All that was missing was Joy Behar.” — GREG GUTFELD“There are a few Dems to shore up the list of yesterday’s pundits who’ve seen their audiences flee like Tim Walz hearing a car backfire.” — GREG GUTFELDWe 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 Pitt’ Has Impressed Real Doctors With Its Accuracy

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      Max’s unusually accurate medical drama, starring Noah Wyle as a beleaguered E.R. physician, has become the talk of real-life hospital breakrooms.Doctors and nurses who love Max’s “The Pitt” remember the moment they realized it wasn’t like other medical shows.Caitlin Dwyer, a charge nurse in Milwaukee, took note of a character’s decision — counterintuitive but medically correct — not to defibrillate a patient with a particular type of heart failure.Dr. Elizabeth Rempfer, an attending physician in Maryland, felt a pang of recognition at the depiction of a chaotic and desperate waiting room.For Dr. Tricia Pendergrast, a resident physician in Ann Arbor, Mich., it was a character who faced such an unrelenting caseload that even a trip to the bathroom was cut short.“It’s the first time that I’ve watched doctors on television that I felt like I could see myself in them,” she said.Most medical professionals learned long ago not to expect reality in dramatizations of their work. From the early days of “General Hospital,” to “Grey’s Anatomy” and its various spinoffs, to more recent hits like “The Good Doctor” and “Brilliant Minds,” TV medical dramas have tended to go heavy on the drama, light on the medicine.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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      Stephen Colbert Laughs Off New York Mayor’s Staffing Woes

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      This week, Colbert said, Eric Adams’s problems “stopped being funny and started becoming hilarious.”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.Rat RaceNew York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has had a challenging start to his week, with four of his eight deputy mayors announcing their resignations. Stephen Colbert called it the moment when “Adams’s controversies stopped being funny and started becoming hilarious.”“The resignations were from the first deputy mayor, deputy mayor for health and human services, deputy mayor for operations, and deputy mayor for public safety. So, at this point, the city is evidently being run by the remaining deputy mayor: 100 rats in a trench coat.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe resignations came after several federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York quit, having come under pressure from the Trump administration to drop charges in the mayor’s corruption case.“That takes courage. Thankfully, all these lawyers found jobs at the new firm of Wegot, Balls & Howe.” — STEPHEN COLBERTColbert reminded viewers that Adams has “been involved in controversy for years now.”“For instance, while he was running to be the mayor of New York, no one could tell if he lived in New York or New Jersey; once he became mayor, he appointed, and later had to remove, his brother as deputy police commissioner. He announced a personal war on rats, introduced a Times Square RoboCop that failed as a police officer but thrived as a public urinal, and claims that the Big Apple is littered with unique crystals that give out a special energy. Yes, in fact, I saw a gentleman enjoying some of those unique crystals in the Port Authority bathroom yesterday. He definitely radiated a ‘special energy.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Reality Bites Edition)“This is the worst ad I have ever seen. It’s a virtual support group for singles, but it looks like an A.A. meeting for ‘Animal Crossing’ villagers.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSON on Meta’s new ad for its VR game, “Horizon Worlds”“CGI has gotten very good — ‘Avatar,’ ‘Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ — get it together! You’re telling me this is the best you can do? It looks like an animated show for children made by even younger children.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSONWe 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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      ‘Best Interests’ Is a Deeply Empathetic British Series

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      Starring Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen, the four-part series, on Acorn TV, is a heartbreaking look at two parents in an impossible situation.There are no villains in “Best Interests,” a heartbreaking limited series that arrives on Acorn TV on Monday. Instead, the series, a four-part British drama starring Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen, is about two people in impossible circumstances who are trying to do what they think is right.The episodes follow Nicci (Horgan) and Andrew (Sheen), a married couple whose daughter Marnie (Niamh Moriarty) has a form of muscular dystrophy. Early on, the cheerful Marnie ends up in the hospital with an infection that leads ultimately to brain damage. Her doctor (Noma Dumezweni) recommends stopping treatment.This is where Nicci and Andrew, whom we immediately understand to be dedicated parents, diverge. Andrew looks at his child and believes the girl he once knew is gone; Nicci sees a callous system that wants her disabled daughter to die. The writer Jack Thorne, known for “His Dark Materials,” never allows one side to be the “right” one. Horgan’s passion convinces you there is a chance for Marnie; Sheen’s despair makes you believe there isn’t.In the middle there is Nicci and Andrew’s other daughter, Katie, played by Alison Oliver of “Conversations With Friends.” Katie is a teen who has always existed in the shadow of her high-needs sister. She copes by sneaking cigarettes and wants desperately to appease both her parents. While Oliver portrays Katie’s pain well, her story ends up being the weakest because of an ill-advised plotline involving a bad girlfriend and the theft of Marnie’s unused drugs. It is the most outlandish the series gets.“Best Interests” is at its most fascinating, though, when it invests in the emotional compromises all these people make as they try to fight for Marnie. Andrew is shocked, for instance, that Nicci would align herself with a Christian organization, which is likely anti-abortion, in order to pursue a court case against the hospital. Nicci, on the other hand, sees Andrew’s resistance as abandonment.Horgan and Sheen propel the show with their wonderfully complicated performances. Horgan, best known for sharp-edged comedies like “Catastrophe” and “Bad Sisters,” brings wry humor to Nicci even in her character’s darkest moments. But she also depicts the unimaginable agony of a parent in limbo. In Sheen’s dejected, empathetic depiction of Andrew, you see how crushed he is by the notion that Marnie is already gone.Sadly, the voice that is missing is Marnie’s. Her life is rendered through flashbacks that feel like rosy, one-dimensional glimpses of what once was. But as a depiction of what happens once she can no longer speak for herself, “Best Interests” is devastatingly complex. More

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      Maher Knocks Trump’s Gutting of the Federal Work Force

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      “America is in shock that the guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re fired’ is firing everybody in government,” Bill Maher said of President Trump on “Real Time.”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.Hulk SmashPresident Donald Trump’s first month in office has been eventful.On Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” the host Bill Maher referred to the last several days as “week four of Hulk smash,” saying that Trump’s administration “dissects a frog with a hand grenade — this is their method.”“We were so scared that the government was going to turn into ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ that we didn’t see that the big threat was from the guys on ‘The Big Bang Theory.’” — BILL MAHER“America is in shock that the guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re fired’ is firing everybody in government.” — BILL MAHER“He wants to suck our blood? That is not what I voted for when I voted for Dracula.” — BILL MAHER“Maybe this is why Gen Z’s approval rating of Trump has dropped 30 points in one month. Hey, kids, a little tip: The time to pay attention is before the election.” — BILL MAHER“Look, I believe government is too bloated, but the way they’re doing it is ridiculous and horrible and now they went — maybe this is the one that’s too far — they went and fired almost everybody in the agency that’s responsible for maintaining our nuclear weapons. Fired — and then, of course, they had to walk that back because somebody said, ‘This is a national security crisis.’ Duh.” — BILL MAHERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Presidents’ Day Edition)”It is Presidents’ Day, so to those who celebrate, why?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“All government offices will be closed, although I think that was the plan anyway.” — BILL MAHER“When I was a kid, it wasn’t Presidents’ Day; we celebrated Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays. Every February, we would hang our stockings and wait for Abraham Lincoln to fill them with wooden teeth.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian Andy Richter and the lawyer and activist George Conway joined the panelists to dog DOGE on the Season 2 premiere of “Have I Got News For You.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightGeorge Clooney will discuss his Broadway debut in “Good Night, and Good Luck” on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutDozens of current and former “Saturday Night Live” cast members, along with dozens of former hosts and musicians, gathered onstage with the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels (front row, second from left), to close out the show.Theo Wargo/NBC, via Getty ImagesThe “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special was sweet, self-satirizing and star-studded. More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Celebrates 50 Years With Star-Studded Prime-Time Special

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      Stage and audience alike at Studio 8H were packed with cast, alumni and other celebrities in a night that was in turns sweet and self-satirizing.After a half-century of comedy and music (and what at times felt like an equal amount of buildup and hype), how do you at last kick off a prime-time 50th anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live”? Calmly and serenely, it turns out.The long-awaited “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” opened on Sunday with the musicians Paul Simon (an “S.N.L.” stalwart through the decades) and Sabrina Carpenter (who was its musical guest in May 2024) sharing the stage at the show’s familiar home base at Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.They exchanged a simple joke, setting a theme that would recur for the rest of the night: Time passes, whether you like it or not. Simon said they were about to play a song that he had performed on the show with George Harrison in 1976. “I was not born then,” Carpenter said, “and neither were my parents.”“I’m glad they’ll get the chance to hear it tonight,” Simon replied. And together he and Carpenter performed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” the first musical number in a night that also included performances by Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus with Brittany Howard and Lil Wayne with the Roots.And who else could perform the opening monologue on this occasion but Steve Martin, a 16-time host whose own rising star in the 1970s imparted some needed credibility and momentum to “S.N.L.” when it was just starting out.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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      ‘Suits L.A.,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      A reboot of the popular law series airs on NBC. And the second season of the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923” returns to Paramount+.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that air or stream this week, Feb. 17-23. Details and times are subject to change.A reboot six years later.From the original iteration of “Suits” came a princess, a Netflix phenomenon and endless YouTube edits of relationships on the show — so what will the reboot, “Suits L.A.,” bring? Whereas the original was set at a corporate law firm in New York City, the new version takes place in Los Angeles with attorneys dealing with entertainment law. But of course, there is still cockiness, borderline inappropriate flirting and the glitz and glam that comes with being a rich lawyer. Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC.Award season continues.Dave Chappelle will be honored at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAs we head further into winter, though also an inch closer to spring, award season is still in effect. First, there is the 56th N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, which celebrates the achievements of people of color across entertainment. The comedian Dave Chappelle is set to receive the N.A.A.C.P. President’s Award. Kendrick Lamar, who has had a big month after taking home five Grammys and performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, is nominated for entertainer of the year, alongside Cynthia Erivo, Keke Palmer, Kevin Hart and Shannon Sharpe. Saturday at 8 p.m. on BET.The next night, Kristen Bell is hosting the 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which could give us a good idea of which movies might win at the Oscars. The difference between this award show and others is that it honors exclusively actors, which this year includes the nominees Kieran Culkin, Mikey Madison and Jonathan Bailey, to name a few. Sunday at 8 p.m. on Netflix.There’s never a lack of true crime stories.A memorial for Gabby Petito.Brittainy Newman/Associated PressWe 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