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      ‘The Creep Tapes’ Finale, Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      Mark Duplass reprises his serial killer role in a new series. And reality TV royalty, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, reunite.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are broadcast live or available for streaming this week, Dec. 9 to Dec. 15. Details and times are subject to change.Christmas With the CreepsJust because Halloween has come and gone doesn’t mean you can’t keep enjoying some spooky content. (The holidays, after all, can be plenty scary.) Since I, a veritable horror nerd, am taking over the column this week, I am garnishing it with some ghouls.It may seem strange to call a serial killer character beloved, but Mark Duplass’s Josef is just that. Originally introduced in the found-footage horror movie “Creep,” from 2014, the eerie yet endearing villain returns in “The Creep Tapes,” which will air its season finale this week. “This is going to be a comfort show, weirdly, for people who love this character,” Duplass said in an interview with The New York Times. Consider me comforted. Streaming on Friday on Shudder and AMC+.In “The Creep Tapes,” Duplass reprises his role as Josef, a man who lures videographers to his home and kills them on camera.ShudderIf you’re tired of pleasant, family-friendly holiday specials, look no further: The comedian and critic Joe Bob Briggs is here to shake things up. The special “Joe Bob’s Christmas Carnage” will take his usual format of providing crude commentary alongside two gory B-movies (this time of the holiday variety). The films included will be kept secret until the show airs, but one thing’s for sure — there will be plenty of bloodshed. Friday at 9 p.m. on Shudder and AMC+.While I’m mentioning my favorite monsters, it’s worth noting that the latest season of “Dragula” (like the cooler, goth cousin of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”) is now streaming in its entirety. The artists competing this season were truly formidable, and it’s thrilling to see the freaky and gorgeous looks they construct. Plus, the hosts, the Boulet Brothers, subject the talented performers to twisted, “Survivor”-esque feats of courage, like jumping out of planes and swimming with sharks. Now on Shudder and AMC+.Reality RoundupIt’s no secret that the early 2000s — its fashion, its stars and its music trends — are back in a big way. But perhaps the strongest signal of their return is the reunion of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, 20 years after their reality show “The Simple Life.” Time to don your Juicy Couture sweatsuits and warm up your vocal fry for three-part limited series “Paris and Nicole: The Encore,” in which the aughts royalty attempt to stage an opera inspired by their inside-joke phrase “sanasa.” Lifelong friendship? Now that’s hot. Streaming Thursday on Peacock.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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      ‘Dune: Prophecy’: Travis Fimmel on His Character’s Fiery Rise to the Top

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      Desmond Hart has been a wild card since he burned a young prince alive with his mind. The actor who plays him talked about what motivates Desmond’s drive for power.This interview contains mild spoilers for Season 1, Episode 4 of “Dune: Prophecy.”His character has used his supernatural powers to murder a child prince in the shadows and massacre an emperor’s enemies in public. But the “Dune: Prophecy” star Travis Fimmel doesn’t know if people hate him for it.“No idea,” said Fimmel, an Australian actor, whose friendly speech in an interview last week was sprinkled liberally with the word “mate.” “I’m on a little ranch, so I haven’t been anywhere, really. People could be hating on me. Wouldn’t be the first time, buddy.”Fimmel has portrayed men of great destiny and dubious morality before entering the Dune-iverse: a grasping young king in the historical epic “Vikings,” a mad messiah in the sci-fi mind-bender “Raised by Wolves.” Here, Fimmel stars as Desmond Hart, an ex-soldier returned from a near-fatal tour of duty on the resource-rich desert planet of Arrakis. Seemingly swallowed alive by one of the planet’s massive sandworms, he emerged supernaturally augmented — and wildly ambitious.Now an imperial adviser with deadly telepathic abilities, Desmond is a wild card in this highly structured fictional universe, which is set some 10,000 years before the events of the original “Dune” book by Frank Herbert and the two “Dune” films by Denis Villeneuve. As Fimmel put it, Desmond likes to mess with people’s heads.“Desmond acts like he knows what’s going on and what’s going to happen,” Fimmel said, “but he is unsure of himself, and he is unsure what the power he has can do to him.”Attila Szvacsek/HBO“I’m not in a position of power,” he said, speaking from Desmond’s point of view. “I’m not rich. I’ve got nothing. I’m from the other side of the tracks. Messing with people’s heads is the only power I can get.”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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      ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Season 1, Episode 4 Recap: Ol’ Blue Eyes

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      The sisters have a terrifying vision. Desmond gives a terrifying display of his power and loyalty. Any connection?Season 1, Episode 4: ‘Twice Born’Two blue lights shine in the darkness, like the eyes of an insectoid machine. Guttural sounds, like speech in a language not yet invented, accompany them, but only for a second.Throughout “Dune: Prophecy,” this menacing pairing of sight and sound has recurred in dreams and visions. Are they the eyes of God, judging the Sisterhood, as Sister Emeline argues? Are they the eyes of the tyrannical force that Raquella, the Sisterhood’s first Mother Superior, warned about with her dying breaths? Are they the eyes of whatever entity gives Desmond Hart his “beautiful, terrible” power to burn people alive with his mind? Are all these things one and the same?I suspect we’ll get the answer eventually, but part of me thinks that’s a shame. Right now, the blue lights and the garbled grunts are the most Lynchian thing this franchise has served up since the director David Lynch himself was in charge of it 40 years ago. And as Lynch has demonstrated time and again, sometimes the mystery is its own reward.Not that the Sisterhood would agree. From Emeline on down, all of them — with the alleged exception of Sister Jen — experience simultaneous nightmares one night. They each begin differently, but they end in the same place: in the sands of Arrakis, standing before a sandworm’s maw, ready to fall in and meet that pitiless blue-eyed gaze. Mother Tula’s experiment with automatic drawing to uncover the meaning of the dreams almost ends in disaster when she completely loses control of the trance into which she places the acolytes, leaving them in the clutches of whatever force sent the dream in the first place.In a time of apocalypse, cults of personality spring up like fungus. So it is in the Sisterhood: Emeline revives the teachings of Valya’s rival, Mother Dorotea, whose death, we learn, was labeled a suicide by the Harkonnen sisters and their cronies. (In reality, Valya used the Voice to command Dorotea to kill herself.) In what appears to be a nightmare or a vision — though by the end of the episode, that distinction is slim indeed — Emeline confronts Tula with the truth, vowing to inform the Imperium; then Tula slits her throat. (This is the same fate Emeline met in her own nightmare, though in the dream it was she who wielded the blade against herself.)But the next thing Tula knows, she is sitting placidly by the side of Sister Lila’s stasis chamber once again, where Emeline found and confronted her. There’s no evidence Emeline has been there. But Lila is gone, broken free of her chamber; she emerges from the shadows, her eyes bright blue from overexposure to the psychoactive spice. Are those the eyes everyone is so afraid of?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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      Hunter Biden and Matt Gaetz Are Church Lady’s Guests on ‘S.N.L’

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      Playing his old familiar character, Dana Carvey talks about Jesus, tweaks celebrities for their sins and skewers Satan.A quick primer for the younger readers of this recap: The late 1980s were a creatively fruitful time for “Saturday Night Live” where for some reason every third sketch was a fake talk show. Among the most popular of these recurring bits was a segment called “Church Chat,” in which a piously persnickety host known simply as the Church Lady (played by Dana Carvey) would roast celebrities of the day and accuse pretty much everyone of working in the service of Satan.After a yearslong hiatus, “S.N.L.” brought back “Church Chat” to open this weekend’s broadcast, which was hosted by Paul Mescal and featured the musical guest Shaboozey. Carvey, once again clad in the prim attire of the Church Lady and seated in front of a stained-glass window, said he was back to “ring out the end of 2024, the most satanic year in history.”“Everywhere you look, you’ve got 11-year-olds dressing up like that vixen Sabrina Carpenter,” Carvey proclaimed. “You know who’s the best carpenter? Jesus.”Church Lady then introduced the first “Church Chat” guest, Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman), the former representative from Florida, who last month withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general.“Are you OK, Matt?” Carvey asked Sherman. “You look a little surprised to be here.”“No, this is just how my face is,” Sherman answered.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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      Luke Wilson Finds Inspiration in Michael Heizer’s Desert ‘City’

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      “Probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in person,” said the actor, one of the stars of the Netflix TV series “No Good Deed.”The concept of a self-reliant solitary figure “working hard toward a singular goal” appeals to the actor Luke Wilson.“That’s kind of my idea of being a hero,” he said during a video interview.It was mid-November, and he was doing publicity for “No Good Deed,” a dark comedy on Netflix, set to begin streaming Thursday, in which he plays a failed soap star who’s anything but self-reliant. The character is ensnared in what Wilson, 53, describes as a “Svengali-type relationship” with a micromanaging wife.“He’s not very intelligent. We probably have that in common,” he joked, before singing the praises of a few noted individualists, including those he’s watched onscreen or onstage, those he’s read about, and one he’s known all his life. These are edited excerpts.My Mother’s PhotographyWhen I was growing up, she always took pictures, always had a Nikon. In the late ’70s, she went to work for Richard Avedon. From there, she started to publish her own books. Her last book, “The Writers,” I think she worked on for 12 years. She went all over the world, from Mexico to Scotland, and got all these incredible writers. It was interesting how many didn’t want their picture taken, and she kept at them. I admire how hard she worked.Blue JaysI’m from Dallas. In the fall, you hear blue jays, and it always means the heat is over, the cool weather’s coming and it’s football season leading into the holidays. I was just back home, walking around the little house that my dad used as an office and, sure enough, I heard some blue jays, and that really moved me.‘Off to the Side’ by Jim HarrisonA great book about a writer and about the craft. I’ve found a first edition and a signed copy. I just feel a connection to this guy. He was in that hard-drinking, ’70s novelist/poet group that came out of Key West. There was something kind of gentle and poetic about them, even though they were such hard-living guys.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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      Jimmy Kimmel Says Pete Hegseth Cameos Could Be a Thing This Christmas

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      The late-night host wondered if the embattled pick for secretary of defense could end up appearing on the online platform in time for Christmas.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.Bad BehaviorPresident-elect Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, continues to face allegations of raucous behavior while working for Fox News.Jimmy Kimmel said that reports of excessive drinking by Hegseth and accusations of sexual misconduct have overshadowed that he is “not even remotely qualified to be secretary of defense — that, we’ve already forgotten about.”“Something tells me we might be able to get Pete Hegseth Cameo videos for Christmas this year.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The latest allegation is that at a 2016 ‘Fox & Friends’ Christmas party, Hegseth reportedly caused a disturbance, leading to a human resource department intervention. Ooh, human resource interventions are the worst: ‘Pete, when you drink, it makes me feel like the company is legally liable.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The H.R. talking-to clearly didn’t work, because soon after, Hegseth attended the wedding of a Fox News colleague, where he reportedly got so drunk that he struggled to stay upright in a men’s bathroom, and friends asked a producer who was there to get him a ride home. OK, finally! ‘Someone at Fox News who’s responsible,’ is what I would say if that sentence did not end with ‘So he could make it to the set by 6 a.m.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden’s Last Stand Edition)“Earlier tonight, they had the national Christmas tree lighting at the White House. Yeah. It was a fun night. When President Biden came out, all the kids were like, ‘Look, the Ghost of Christmas Past!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Not only did he light the tree this year, he gave it a pre-emptive pardon just in case it falls over on someone or gets all coked up and throws its gun in the dumpster. Who knows?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They kept referring to it as ‘Biden’s final tree-lighting ceremony,’ which, when you’re his age, is probably not what you want to hear.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Meanwhile, during tonight’s ceremony, the winds were over 40 miles an hour. Yeah. Biden’s skin looked like when a bulldog sticks his head out of the car window.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingRonny Chieng caught up with Charles Yu, the creator and executive producer of Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown,” on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAmy Adams channels her feral side in “Nightbitch,” directed by Marielle Heller.Searchlight PicturesAmy Adams stars as a mother who begins to believe she’s a dog in “Nightbitch,” Marielle Heller’s film adaptation of the Rachel Yoder novel. More

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      ‘The Sticky’ Is a Taut and Tasty Heist Thriller

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      Starring Margo Martindale, the six-episode Amazon series, based loosely on a true story, tells a gonzo tale of a maple syrup heist.“The Sticky,” available Friday on Amazon Prime Video, is the latest quirky crime dramedy to begin with a title card disavowing its veracity: “This is absolutely not the true story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist.” Indeed, “The Sticky” is inspired only loosely by the actual heist of 2011-12, in which thieves in Quebec stole $18 million worth of syrup over the course of several months. The clearer inspiration for the show is all the other shows it resembles, all the far-flung cousins at the “Fargo” family reunion.This is to the show’s advantage. “The Sticky” has learned from its predecessors’ mistakes, and like maple syrup itself has been reduced down into its most concentrated and tasty form: six half-hour episodes. There is one timeline, and the screws tighten precisely and constantly. Things move from “ … should we?” to “ack!” with a winning urgency. This tidiness, though, can sometimes feel like oversimplification, with lines that land as childish and pat. “Look at you and look at me,” the villain says to our hero. “What makes you possibly think you can win?” One yearns for the musical number that would follow this in a Disney movie.Margo Martindale stars as Ruth, a woman who has run afoul of the local syrup licensing rules but is desperate for money because her husband is in a coma. She teams up with an in-over-his-head mob underling (Chris Diamantopoulos) and the security guard at a syrup warehouse (Guillaume Cyr), and they form an imperfect but endearing trio. Hot on their tails are the warm local cop and the icy big-city cop.Martindale is the draw here, and she more than delivers, but Cyr is the highlight. His Remy is doofy, aggrieved, awkward, but more sweet than menacing — often underestimated, but also often vulnerable. Even the other characters call him “the Oaf.” The scenes between Cyr and Martindale are when the show feels fullest, like its best self.Central to the show are syrup taps and barrels, and the story itself overflows its container a bit: Some of the big twists and important developments happen in the codas, after the first moments of end credits. And few shows in living memory have set up their second seasons with such juicy dun dun dunnns, so much so that it feels like taunting the cancellation gods. More

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      Late Night Weighs In on Pete Hegseth’s ‘Teetering’ Nomination Prospects

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      Hosts riff on Trump’s possible swap of his secretary of defense nominee amid excessive-drinking claims against Hegseth.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.‘Sobering News’President-elect Donald Trump is said to be reconsidering his choice of Pete Hegseth for defense secretary after allegations emerged of the former Fox News host drinking excessively while on the job.On Wednesday’s “Daily Show,” Ronny Chieng wondered who could have seen this coming — “other than Matt Gaetz, Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Cohen and everyone else Trump has ever come into contact with?”“Hey, anyone heard from Herman Cain lately? He’s dead — Google it.” — RONNY CHIENG“OK, before you judge — yes, his show starts at six in the morning, but he was still drinking from the night before, OK? So it’s not sad, it’s awesome.” — RONNY CHIENG“I mean, if Hegseth doesn’t get confirmed, this is really going to make people question Trump’s strategy of giving the most unemployable people on earth the hardest jobs that have ever existed.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Plan D Edition)“Apparently, the reports of the drinky-drink are making Trump doing the thinky-think, because word is Trump’s support for Hegseth is teetering, much like Pete Hegseth at a staff meeting.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Instead, Trump is mulling replacing Hegseth with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. While DeSantis actually has some defense qualifications, the replacement isn’t a done deal, because some in Trump’s orbit strongly dislike Ron DeSantis. Wow, that is a weird way to find out I am in Trump’s orbit.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And if you’re wondering what qualifications Ron DeSantis has to run the Pentagon, you are correct to wonder that.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But at least Ron DeSantis is the governor of a state, and he does have military experience. He served in the navy as a JAG officer — he’s a real jag officer, this guy.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe actress Isabella Rossellini discussed the revival of her film “Death Becomes Her” as a Broadway musical while on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe “Saturday Night Live” alumna Kate McKinnon will appear on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutGetting notes from the fellow actor Jesse Eisenberg, his castmate and director, threw Kieran Culkin off at first: “Literally, my chest would pop out, and I’d clench my fist and be in a defensive stance.”Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesKieran Culkin is an awards season front-runner for his role in “A Real Pain,” but his favorite part to play is father to his two children. More